One Step Forward Two Steps Back
by YouWillNeverKnowMyNameForSure
Summary: Another escape from Iron heights puts the team on edge when a threat is made towards one of their own. Oliver is constantly worried for Felicity's safety and Digg is tired of watching the two dance around their feelings, but between an assassin escape and the constant attempts at Felicity's life there isn't really a good time for anything. Olicity slow burn. No Sara.
1. The Beginning

**A/N: I would like to say thank you for reading my fan fiction. I do not have a beta but I am watching one from a distance. She is incredible and I am far to intimidated to approach her. However, that doesn't mean the story is bad, there might be some grammar errors, hopefully nothing to tragic English, grammar and vocabulary have always been my favorite subjects. Hope you enjoy. I plan on an update at least once a week and at most twice. Thanks for reading. Please Review. **

**Oh I also suppose I should put a disclaimer at least once. So consider it disclaimed. **

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Felicity heels clacked against the pavement. The sound was loud, hollow and echoed off the brick walls and tin roofs, but this late at night everything sounded loud and hollow. Everyone else was asleep in bed. Asleep, the thing she should be doing right now. But NO! She was here. Slowly walking to her car after a hard night in the foundry tracking yet again, another criminal the SCPD had been so discreetly hiding the escape of. After five hours of no luck, and no new leads Oliver sent her home. "There's not much else we can do. You might as well get some rest."

He was always careful about how long she was down there. Yes, He pulled her down there a lot. And yes, sometimes it was unnecessary or a false alarm. But he always wanted her to go home at least by three and get some rest. "You're no good to the Arrow or Queen Consolidated If you are half asleep all day." He chided her in a light but serious way. His voice would drop an octave if she tried to debate him. However If she wanted to stay she stayed. The only way he could get her to budge was if he carried her out. And he had yet to try it. But the way he looked at her sometimes when she was being particularly stubborn and hadn't slept in a few days, told her he may not be that far from attempting it.

He never actually won a fight with her, nor she with him. They were both too stubborn for either one to actually resolve said conflict. But it eventually just became outdated or an un-spoken agreement passed between them saying "let's drop it and not talk about again." And they both respected it. However a majority of the time they saw eye-to-eye on things. Only, of course, because she wore five inch heels.

Felicity loved the way they could communicate so efficiently. One look spoke a million words and one touch… Felicity let herself think about those precious moments when he would put his hand on the small of her back or her arm. All her worries would instantly melt and she felt safe. And most importantly, she felt cared for.

Suddenly she heard a loud thud, and she swiveled around to see where the noise had come from. Nothing, there was nothing there. Just a garbage can and an old rusty fire escape. She breathed a sigh of relief chastising herself for being so jumpy. A whole night of chasing after an ex-assassin for hire must have been getting to her.

The assassin Lephar Carmichaels was a government project gone wrong. A man trained to kill, capture, or torment as commanded a brutal and unforgiving shell of a man. And naturally the project went south from there (If it could even get any further south.). Lephar escaped his commander and started his Assassin for Hire business. Until a year ago, that is, when the Hood, or now, the Arrow had delivered him to Iron Heights prison.

Lephar's signature to all his murders was to decapitate and disembody his victims then putting it back together again. Leaving no DNA, no finger prints, and no weapons, making it impossible to solve, and gruesome not to. Felicity had been going over all of the cases that night and was utterly terrified from what she saw. Biting her lower lip, she closed the tab and left at Oliver's suggestion.

Now all she wanted was to go home and take a hot bath with wine and unwind. Maybe watch some Doctor Who, or Supernatural, or Harry Potter. Every nerve in her body was tingling, her dendrites and synapsis on over drive. Slowly turning back towards the direction of her car she begins to walk a little faster her heels hitting the pavement harder her breath speeding up. As she approached her car she glances over her shoulder to see a figure standing, stoic watching her.

A violent and bowel shattering scream erupts from her throat and the figure quickly closes the distance between them and places a hand over her mouth. She reaches into her purse and pulls out the pepper spray attempting to blind her attacker. But he effortlessly rips it from her hand before she has a chance to use it.

"SHHHHH!" a familiar voice hushes her. She quits screaming but squeals as she tries to back away. The man lets her. "Felicity it's me! I'm not going to hurt you. It's me Oliver!" She hears his harsh whisper yell at her. "Oh my god, Oliver," She gasps through her shortened breathes. "You scared the bejesus outta me!" She leaned against her red mini cooper trying calm down, Oliver's hand rests on the base of her neck and her shoulder.

She allows herself to feel the warmth of his skin on hers and the reassuring feel in his touch. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to scare you." He confesses.

She looks at the ground and then back at him. "I thought you and Digg were still training." She states "At least you were when I left." He gives his almost smile, and replies "I wanted to make sure you got home safely. I know this particular assignment is bringing back some unpleasant memories." She nods her head in an understanding agreement. She remembered the last time they were tracking Lephar Carmichaels. She herself had been one of the unfortunate souls to stumble upon one of his victims (A low level IT worker in QC but a major hacker and police cooperator, doing several tasks for the SCPD were unable to do on their own, Such as following digital and paper trails left behind by sloppy murders, convicts, thieves, and other low life scum.) while working overtime for the company trying to compensate for the time Oliver was not there. She never told Oliver that she works late and files papers and signs documents for him. She was always worried about him and his double life, so she took it upon herself to lighten his load and make his life slightly easier.

Oliver nodded to her car and she got in the passenger seat while he took the wheel. They buckled their seat belts and began to drive towards her home.

Once they arrived at her little town house he got out of the car and insisted on escorting her to the door. "A lot can happen in one hundred feet." He said in his no nonsense voice. They climbed the stairs to her home stopped at the door.

"I'm sorry." Felicity said her head ever so slightly to one side biting her lower lip. Oliver could help but notice how beautiful she looked right now. Her wavy blond hair flowing over her shoulders like a liquid gold water fall. Her black sweetheart bengaline pencil dress hugging every curve of her body making her look seductive but still looking professional. Her four inch black heels making her almost his height so they could look easily into each other's eyes. For a brief second his eyes flickered down to see her legs pale and thin made long and slender by the heels. His eyes quickly went back to look at her big, blue doe eyes.

"For what?" He asks with concern. Had she done something that put herself and the others in danger? He was becoming increasingly concerned until she opened her mouth "It must be hard for you too." She said quietly but not breaking eye contact. "The whole 'In jail outta jail' thing must be frustrating. And with all these meetings with the board of directors at QC I know you must have a lot on your mind, and I'm sorry. I wish I could help more."

"Hey," He lightly cupped her face with his hand, and her eyes flickered shut for a moment, but coming back to focus as he began talking again. "I'm fine. You don't need to worry about me. Even with all these meetings there have hardly been any paper work to go with it." His hand went down to rest at his side and he shifted his weight.

A black SUV drives up that they both know is one John Diggle. "We will catch Lephar. We will put him away for good. And when we do, we will celebrate with a bottle of red wine." Felicity gives him a smile, only not at the fact that he remembered that she loved red wine, but because she thought about the piles of paperwork inside she was going through for Oliver, making his life just slightly more bearable. Oliver started walking towards the car and Felicity opened her door to go inside.

"Umm, Oliver…" She said her voice slightly wavering. She took a few steps inside. "Yeah, Felicity" He said returning to the entrance of her house but going inside. He watched her half-hazard steps "Is something wrong?" He said as she slowly walked behind a wall.

"It may be nothing, but I'm ninety-eight percent sure I turned my lights off this morning before I left the house." That got his attention, He quickly went inside the door and turned left, the way Felicity had gone, and grabbed her wrist. They were standing in the living room next to the fire place which was on, strange. The back wall was lined with clear, plastic sheets with pictures of what he assumed to be computer parts and equations on them. Most of the walls were covered with post-it notes with different variables on them. Her entire living room looked like a math equation. She had about ten laptops spread through-out the room on end tables and chairs, each one with a different screen pulled up. There was a closed, brown door on the right side of the room which he guesses was where her bedroom was. Closer to him was a brightly lit door way. He cautiously approached the door way leaving Felicity behind him. Hopefully safer then exploring the rest of the house with him. He entered into the room he now knows to be the kitchen seeing it empty. There weren't even dishes on the countertop. Instead stacks of papers with the Queen Consolidated head line.

He studied the papers to notice they were being filed and gone through in an orderly, but slow fashion. He noticed one of the headlines: _Pension for the disabled/elderly revised plan_. He remembered that meeting from a few days ago. They said he needed to sign some papers and say if he agreed with it or not. He hadn't gotten around to reading over any of it yet. Then again, He never had to, Felicity was always a few steps ahead and new everything it covered and then he would sign it if she made it a good case. She had always said she just paid attention during the meeting. And she gave him one piece of paper with the summary of the subject in question and then he would sign it, or veto it, based on its merits. He never knew she was bringing home all these papers and studying and researching them for him. He felt a pang of guilt in his chest, the thought of her working all day then working a majority of the night with him in the lair, only to come home and continue to work for him by doing the paperwork that he should be doing.

A creaking of the floor caused him to spin on him heels to see Felicity approaching her bedroom door. "FELICITY, NO!" He called starting to run over to stop her but it was too late. She opened the door and a black mass of a human pushed her back so hard she hit the coffee table and tumbled backward into the wall making a felicity shaped imprint in her drywall. Oliver lunged at the man in the ninja get-up but was a little too slow, due to his divided attention. He was far more worried about felicity and if she was okay. The mysterious figure jumped out of Oliver's way and crashed through a window, gone, without so much as a scratch. Oliver rushed over to Felicity's side and put a hand on her rib cage applying the tiniest amount of pressure making sure all her ribs were intact. She groaned but her eyes flickered open.

Digg busted through the room like a cannon ball. "Man what the hell just ran through her window?" His eyes fixed upon Felicity's fallen body. Thin and frail next to her totaled drywall. She was covered in dust but looked fine. "Man, what happened?" He knelt down next to Oliver and began checking Felicity for any injuries. There didn't seem to be any. She moaned pulling herself upright, and with Diggs help, to her feet.

Oliver ran into her room to see a beautiful picture of his friend and IT assistant pinned to her pillow with a knife that held it there between her eyes. Lephar's calling card. Before he claimed his victims he scared them senseless first. Breaking into their homes and impaling a picture of them onto their wall, or in her case pillow. Sometimes just attacking them on the street and pinning a picture of them taken from long distance to their leg with a smaller knife. Either way it was his MO, and it was working, because he was horrified for his partner

A sense of uncontrollable panic swept over him. He was out for blood again. Only this time it was different. This time, it was Felicity. Oliver's heart started to race even though the fight was over, the battle was just beginning. He went back to the living room and into the kitchen where Digg and Felicity were drinking some hot tea.

"It's Lephar," He said already pulling Felicity to her feet and slamming down the picture of Felicity. Digg didn't need anything else before he started ushering Felicity to her room "Collect you things, you are going back to the foundry." After she collected her laptop, tablet, phone, iPod, chargers, and a lot of other technical instruments she grabbed some clothes, shoes, and her toiletries not knowing how long it would be until she got to leave again. Oliver on her left and Digg on her right they began leading her out of her house, she stopped in her tracks and ran back inside. "Oliver the paper work," She gasped. "You need to sign these and hand them in by Friday! I haven't had a chance to read over them or write the summery!" she started frantically pulling papers off the countertop and table digging through the stacks trying to find a paper about god knows what. It looked like trying to find a particular needle and a barrel full of needles, impossible.

"Felicity, calm down, it's alright, I can do it. I'll come back for them don't worry. But right now we need to get you to safety. You are far more important than some papers." He began pulling her towards the door. Even after being thrown into a wall, being threated and quickly escorted out of her home she was still trying to help him and his life.

She pulled out her keys and hit the unlock button on her little red mini cooper key. Then

_**BAM!**_

Her car explodes and she starts to fly back. She feels Oliver's body grab hers and fly to the ground, his body on top of hers, his eyes wild staring at her own. She gulped and her breasts heaved with her scared breaths, less fear for her safety and more afraid towards her very close proximity to Oliver. She became extremely aware or how low her neckline was. Oliver's leg was between hers and her dress was defiantly ripped. A fire still blazing in the back round as dust, ash a little pieces of her car begin falling out of the sky. "On second thought," she said in a little more breathy voice then she intended "why don't we take your car?"


	2. We're Just Getting Started

**A/N: Hey once again, I'd like to thank you for reading my story. I'm still trying to decide if I should bring Sara into this whole dealio. It won't change the plot I have going to much, but it's really up to you. Please review. I still don't have a beta but I have the almighty Google and the ever helpful auto-correct. Tell me what you think. All suggestions are welcome. I will read and consider each one. Also killing Sara is not out of the options two, I still have a while to decide but I really wanted to know what you guys thought. I also want to thank PurifiedDrinkWater and BlueMoonsAndTooSoons for helping me write some of this story. No they don't watch or understand Arrow but the critiques are always welcome. Please tell me if you think I am writing anyone OOC. **

Chapter 2: We're Just Getting Started

Felicity carefully walked back to her desk trying to be as small as possible. She wasn't as scared as she was mad. She had been in the middle of creating an algorithm that would…. Her thoughts drifted from one thing to another, reason after reason of why she was mad. Her wall, her algorithm, her work and paper, her back… She gently put her things back down were they had been resting previously not more than two hours ago.

Because of all the packing, worrying, and exploding mini coopers she hadn't had a chance to register the pain she was feeling. She had been so pumped with adrenalin she hadn't realized the immense pain slowly growing worse on her back. She must have flown into a support beam. '_That's going to leave a mark…' _She comments to herself.

Digg came to rest her other bag next to her, full of her clothes, Shoes, and pajamas. She contemplated changing into her pajamas but decided to wait. It was two o'clock in the morning now and she was becoming increasingly more tired and sore. She gingerly set herself down in her chair and watched Oliver and Diggle get comfortable.

"Finally, it's about time you let me back in." She hears a familiar voice call out. "I was beginning to be worried that I would never get back on your good sides. I mean the whole 'losing control' thing was a good reason to lock me out, but I haven't gotten that uncontrollably angry since… well, since the day of the "Violent Verdent Vigilantly Cataclysm." He said dramatically taking that direct quote from the Starling Reporter (The most popularly read newspaper/website/magazine company in Starling)

No one said anything as he labored on about why he should be allowed back in. Digg had texted him with the new code to the basement and said he needed to meet them there urgently, and nothing more. Oliver was very unhappy about having to call in Roy but new it was necessary. He wouldn't let anything happen to Felicity. He cared for her more than he was willing to admit and he would do everything possible to keep her safe, and capture Lephar putting him back into prison where he belongs.

The thought that Felicity couldn't be in her home was sickening. She couldn't leave the lair until they had Lephar safely behind bars again. He felt bad for forcing her to be cooped up here, but at the same time he didn't. It kept her safe. That was all that mattered. She was safe down here, so here she would stay.

Roy noticed the tension in the room by the time he was halfway into his rant about how much better he had gotten at controlling his strength. "Alright…" He said looking at their somber faces. "Who died?" He asked, but immediately regretted it. Because the answer was a lot, a lot of people had died. Tommy Merlyn , Mrs. Queen, 503 people in the glades, Shado, Slade Wilson, Malcolm Merlyn, and countless others.

Oliver tilted his head to the side. With what looked like a permanent frown engraved on his face. "Wow," Felicity said trying to break Oliver's angry disapproving look. If only looks could kill, Roy would be dead forty times over. "Look at all this tension I could cut with an arrow head." She joked "Just kidding I would need something sharper." Oliver gave up his death glare and turned towards her giving her a slight smile. Digg huffed in appreciation of her joke a small smile trickling his lips.

Felicity misunderstood the looks as maybe taking offence which was NOT her intention. "Not that your arrows aren't sharp." She starts one of her babbles that she has become very well known for. "I mean they are really sharp, you make them yourself and you do a very good job, and the arrows penetration is solid." She grimaces "I didn't mean to use the word penetrate. It is never a good idea to use that word. Infiltrate, impale, encroach, trespass, and perforate. Those are better words, penetrate has too many different meanings, it also makes my skin crawl, not that many things have the ability to make me shiver like that. Other than kangaroos, but that is a different story completely. I was young and impressionable, the kangaroo was scary and mean…." She pauses when she realizes she has gone down a rabbit trail. "The point is!" She stresses wanting to get back on track, "You are very skilled at what you do. I mean the whole arrow making bit…" She stops to see everyone smiling at her.

They were relieved that being violently beaten, almost exploded, and rushed out of her house being told she can't go back for an unforeseen amount of time hasn't completely freaked her out. She's still Felicity. However, being Felicity she couldn't help herself, she had already started the tangent and was on the war path of destruction, quickly digging herself deeper and deeper into her own embarrassment.

"Not that you aren't good at all the other things you do. You are very good. Not that I watch you or anything. I mean I do I'm only human. But not in a cre-"

"Felicity," Oliver interrupts her, finally cutting off her rant before she got even more embarrassed. She cheeks turn bright pink and her blush spreads to her chest. She looks down biting her lower lip trying not to say anything else "You are probably wondering why we have lifted the ban." Oliver turns his attention back to a very puzzled Roy who until Felicity had started rambling had his full attention on Oliver. Now his eyes strayed over to a very battered Felicity, drywall dust in hair and clothes, black smudges on her delicate and beautifully pale skin she looked like she just came back from a night as the hood.

"Yeah, I would love to know. So is someone going to fill me in on what has got you so desperate you needed me, or what?" Roy asks. He didn't like the fact Felicity looked like she had walked through a burning battlefield. He has always liked her, as a friend of course. He totally saw the chemistry between Felicity and Oliver even if they both denied it. Well maybe not Felicity, with her Freudian slips, and lingering stares. He just wished Oliver would see it to.

Having to explain the whole story to Roy was no piece of cake. They had to go back an entire year. To a few months after Slade had been defeated, and before Sara had left. Back to a very dark time in everyone's life. But now the whole story was out there they words where hanging in the air like dead weight. Suddenly it all felt so real, this was no longer a time for breaking tension, or making jokes. Everything was out there. Her life was in danger, and she couldn't leave the lair because she couldn't protect herself from a trained killer, and she could hardly expect Oliver to walk around with her everywhere she goes.

"Is there any way to ID the guy in your house?" Digg asked. Felicity rolled her eyes. "If I had my security cameras turned on don't you think I would have already checked that?" She asked, she had taken some Tylenol when the Digg, and Oliver had been catching Roy up to speed. "I didn't mean security cameras," he said. "I was thinking more like a neighborhood watch program or something… Why would you have security camera in your house?" He asked. In a small townhouse like hers cameras seemed unnecessary. In a home like the Queen Mansion yeah that makes sense. He has expensive art and vases, whereas Felicity had Laptops, which are expensive, but not as expensive as the Van Gogh hanging up in the hallway near Oliver's old bedroom.

Old because Oliver doesn't live in that house anymore, in fact he can't stand to be near it. It had been a year since his mother had been murdered, but the home felt so empty. Even when Moira was in prison, sure it felt empty, and lonely. But then there was hope. Hope she might come home. Hope that she might be acquitted. Now there was no hope. There was no maybe, only 'what ifs'. And that was so much worse. So Oliver had purchased a flat on the expensive side of the city to keep up appearances as a rich, billionaire, playboy type. After Slade had gone down and they had killed Isobel, again, and after a grueling battle with lawyers and other businessmen type people Oliver had regained control of the company and was once again CEO of Queen Consolidated.

"I have a lot of important things in that house, a lot of very private things. Also it's very helpful when I set things down and can't find them. I just watch myself walk around until I put it down. You would be surprised all the things that can go missing in such a small house." She said defensively.

"If you've got such 'important and private things in that house, why weren't the cameras on?" Roy asks "You know, if I wanted to be judged and insulted I would buy a time machine and go back to middle school" She huffs. "And if you must know I was working on a very big project that would help us greatly when YOU," She points an accusing finger at Oliver. "are moonlighting as the Arrow. Only I don't have enough electrical energy to run the program and the cameras, I had left while it was doing a trial run and was hoping it would be fine until I got home." She finishes up feeling very good about herself.

"And what might this project be?" Roy asks. "I can't say I didn't want to say anything until I finished it. But it will be very cool." She finishes very matter-of-factly. Oliver has been very frustrated through the whole conversation, he wanted them to focus. Why were they still messing around, and getting distracted by small talk? This is her life in the balance. Why didn't they take this as seriously as him?

Oliver walked over to the salmon ladder and tore off his shirt to begin working out again. He caught Felicity watching him. She was biting her lower lip again. He absolutely hated it when she did that, he couldn't explain why, it just drove him crazy in a way he couldn't quite pinpoint. He continued to work his way up the ladder swinging in a familiar pattern. They went on this way for a while, her watching him, him pretending not to notice.

"OH!" Felicity cried, She leapt off the sofa where she had been brain storming with Roy and Digg. Mostly she had been brain storming and Digg and Roy had mostly just been providing words of comfort and encouragement, sometimes chatting. They both knew it must be horrifying to see a picture of yourself taken from a distance and have a knife holding it there between the eyes, And they were doing her best to make her feel safe, and normal.

Her sudden outburst scared her co-workers and Oliver's grip faltered from where he was hanging on a pipe from the ceiling doing pull-ups. "What is it Felicity?" Digg said as she ran across the room to be with her computers. Jumping in the office chair and using the momentum from her run and jump to propel the chair across the room and rolling over her computers. She felt a shock of pain but bit here cheek. Her back can wait. "It might be nothing but," her fingers are flying over the computer keys at an unbelievable fast speed, "My neighbors have a baby, but they both work so they don't have time to stay at home with it." Oliver has dropped from his position above the workout mats and is now standing next to a confused Diggle and even more confused Roy.

"That is literally the definition of nothing." Roy says he says disappointed her outburst has no point. Oliver glares at him and he mumbles an apology. "Please continue, Felicity." Oliver says. "No, no, it's not, nothing because they met at their job. See they both work at that dental clinic in the glades." She uses the other keyboard with her other hand, working two screens at once. It was very impressive, her fingers hardly even slowed down to adjust to typing two completely different thoughts and codes at the same time. "Felicity, the point?" He asks. She stops typing and turns to her friends. "The point is I'm a very good neighbor and when they moved in I brought them a homemade apple pie, and we talked, and I listened." Her smile was growing wider as she turned back to her screen to continue typing. Digg and Oliver shift their weight and stare at each other. "Did I miss something? Because this still sounds like nothing to me, I mean good for you and all for being a people person but what has this got to do with anything?" Roy mumbles.

"Because I listened, Roy, And if you listened too you wouldn't be so lost. She glanced over to see that everyone had the same questionable look on their faces. "UGH! I can only explain it so much; I can't understand it for you." She grumbled still typing "I don't think you finished your thought…" Oliver said trying to figure out why her neighbor's parental status would contribute anything important. "Oh, well like I said, they work at a dental clinic. Dental clinics aren't exactly known for their excellent child care." She narrows her eyes at the screen reading as tabs open and closes faster than they can read them. "So they have to hire a nanny. However, you don't just leave your newborn baby with a stranger for a whole workday without a little insurance." Finally it clicked "They have security cameras!" Roy shouts. Right as he shouts his exclamation of understanding she finishes hacking into their cameras. She quickly rewinds and everyone walks behind her to see the computer screen she chooses a camera that is facing one of the windows and can see a figure run to a car from her house, jump in, and drive away. "You are remarkable." Oliver gasps as she enhances the picture to pull a license plate number. Felicity smiles and, swivels around to look at Oliver, Diggle, and Roy staring at her in complete bewilderment. "Gotcha."


	3. Just In Case (You Thought Wrong)

**A/N: Please review with opinions about this chapter if I need to I will re-write it. Every time I sat down to type I felt as if words failed me. Even my Black Power Balled playlist didn't help. So… Also if it's confusing please let me know. OH I almost forgot, I might potentially be slowing down updates. It all depends if I get into summer school. I know its lame but I really want to do it. School is like the bomb digity and if I have an opportunity to continue it all summer, well you can bet your bottom dollar I'll take it. Oh and once again the profile picture for this is what Felicity wears to bed. In case my imagery inst enough for you.**

Chapter 3: In Case You Were Wondering (You Thought Wrong)

Felicity used the DMV's files to identify the person who owned the Silver Dodge Journey, the mystery man's car. Oliver started sparing with Roy, making sure he had complete control over his strength. Making him fight slow normally made him cranky and frustrated, and on occasions violent. But at the moment he was handling it quite well.

Diggle was cleaning his gun and preparing bullets for their man hunt. Oliver huffed as he dodged another one of Roy's punches "Felicity, where are we on the search?" It was almost dawn and he was beginning to worry they may miss their small window of opportunity to catch this guy. He was their only lead. The only positive thing they knew so far was that the guy in her house wasn't Lephar. He was too small, too dexterous. Lephar may be a trained killer but he was slow, the only reason he got so far was because he was studious in timing and skilful with a sword. Felicity would never say it out loud but she always thought he was, in a way, the theoretical love child of William Tockman, and Slade Wilson, minus the super strength, plus an eye, and other dissimilarities.

"His full name is Stephen Obadiah Saloman Abbott Deutscher…" She pauses for a moment and ponders the name. "Wow that's a mouthful, his parents were greedy with the middle names." She states in a slightly judgey way.

"Hey," Diggle says with a smile, "My name is John Thomas Allen Diggle." She looks at him a little 'o' forming on her lips. But instead of an apology she says "Oh Digg, you don't even have a middle name, then." Oliver lets out the slightest of a chuckle and Digg pretends to be offended. "Focus Felicity," Oliver goes back to being serious.

"He's Jewish," She rolls her eyes as if it couldn't be more apparent. "obviously. He grew up in L.A. with his mother going from homeless shelter to homeless shelter, but he appeared to have a relatively active childhood, with afterschool clubs and good grades. Oh, and if his name where an acronym it would spell 'so sad', which is ironic because he is always smiling in pictures." She looks up at Oliver who is in full Arrow gear, ready to go.

"Where does he live?" Oliver starts heading towards the door, Digg on his trail, and Roy still waiting for her to give instructions. "That's the catch." She hesitates. "What do you mean?" Oliver stops and spins around to face her. "He doesn't 'live' anywhere." She shifts in her chair, her back is in a lot of pain again, and she reminds herself to take something stronger and will last longer than Tylenol, maybe some Hydrocodone. She had some in her medicine cabinet at home from when she had her wisdom teeth removed. She considered going home while she sent them to track down the homeless home breaker, but remembered she no longer has her own car. Crap. "He must live out of a stolen car. He has no bank accounts, and virtually no paper trail." She sucks in some air as if she's about to go underwater for an undetermined amount of time. "I can use traffic camera to locate his car, I can only use it for so long because if he leaves town, there's not much more I can do. I mean I could hack a satellite, but they have layers and layers of encryptions, algorithms, and-" Oliver cuts her off, "Felicity start looking at traffic cameras, we need to find him. Him leaving town and getting away is not an option." She turns in her chair to face her computers again. "I'm already on it."

"How much longer will it take you to go through all the feed?" Oliver asks putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. It's meant to be a nice gesture but with growing pain the weight just hurts. "Thirty-minuets if it all goes well." She purposefully slides her chair farther away from Oliver so his hand drops off her shoulder and the pain on her back lessens ever so slightly. She tries to be inconspicuous but he notices. He always notices. He tilts his head but doesn't say anything.

After twenty minutes, with the sound of the bass from upstairs long gone, one of her computers makes a *Ding* sound. She looks up from her desk where her head had been resting. "What was that?" Oliver said looking away from Roy as they were sparing. Roy took the opportunity to lightly with controlled power to kick Oliver's legs out from under him. But Oliver being Oliver fell to the ground lightly rolling over his shoulder, off the sparing matt and to the front of Felicity's computers. She was so tired she didn't even flinch. Felicity's lack of reaction had Oliver very worried, but he knew he needed to find this 'So sad' guy.

She turned her attention back to the screen, "Oh," She sits up straighter and winces. He was defiantly going to check that out. "He's in at a gas station not more than two blocks away!" Oliver grabs his bow,

"Digg with me! Roy stays here. Listen to Felicity. Do what she says." Roy, clearly not oaky with being benched runs up to Oliver grabbing his arm, not to tight. "Oliver I've proved to you already I'm in control. I can do this." Oliver looks at Roy before glancing over at his beautiful partner. She still looked a vision even though the previous hours had been pretty tough on her. "I know you are but, I need someone I can trust to watch her. I think something's wrong, and she's not talking about." He hands Roy a small ear piece. "Keep me updated with her condition. If she does anything out of the ordinary you let me know." Before anyone can say a word Digg and Oliver are out the door on their way to The Nat Gas, a local gas station, where they were supposed to find the Jewish ninja in question.

"So," Felicity looks at Roy who appeared to be a little dejected from being told to stay here and listen to Felicity. "Since you have to do everything I say…" She glances at her computer screens and then to Roy. "Would you mind going to my house and picking up some paper work for me? It's on my counter in the kitchen, it will be easy to find. And I am short a motor vehicle." Roy huffed but agreed to go. There was defiantly nothing wrong with Felicity, her life is being threatened and she is thinking about work, typical IT worker.

"You going to tell me why you have Roy babysitting Felicity, when she is in the safest place in the world right now?" Digg says over the comm. Felicity hadn't gotten online yet so they were able to speak freely. "I think she is in more pain then she's letting on. I just want someone to keep a watchful eye on her." He heard Diggs disapproving grunt. "That's why you gave Roy a private com." It wasn't a question. Oliver never understood Diggs looks and sighs when it came to Felicity. It was like Digg was always waiting for him to say or do something.

He shoots another arrow and glides across the street. He was on top of The Nat Gas now. "I'm here." He huffs. Digg is parked just around the corner. He exits his car and waits. Oliver's eye spots a Sliver dodge. Bulls-eye, He waited for Felicity to get online. "Am I late to the party?" He heard her cheery voice sing out, he is deeply relieved, but he needs to ask. "Yes, you are late. I'm already on site with Digg and I have my eyes on the Silver, Dodge Journey. What where you doing?" her voice stayed light but a majority of the cheeriness was gone. "Oh you know, you put me in charge of Roy so I was relishing in my power. Basically I just gave him a to-do list. Mostly stuff I'm supposed to be doing as your EA but now that I'm under house arrest I'm having to outsource." Oliver felt a little bad; he was the one who told her she couldn't leave. And the fact that she didn't even argue about it made him realize she was as scared as he was. Not that she'd ever admit it. They were both too stubborn to talk about their feelings with each other. So that meant Diggle had the privilege of listening to all their conflicted feelings. He didn't mind it so much when it was Felicity. She was alone and Oliver was confusing and misleading. But Oliver was just an idiot. "He's here!" Oliver barks into the comm. He sees the back of a man walking toward the car, a soda in hand, such a simple thing to do after breaking into some one's home.

Oliver shoots an arrow through the guy's cup, pinning the chilled beverage to the side of his car. He drops off the roof of the station and quickly rolls towards the man. His feet sweep the ground out from under the man in black. He quickly stood up and notched and arrow pointing it at the now scared and trembling figure. The man was taller than Felicity but not taller than Oliver, he had muscles like Oliver but he clearly didn't know how to fight, just run.

"Who do you work for?!" The Arrow bellowed at the horrified man on the ground. "Why were you at Miss. Smoaks home!? Where is Lephar Carmichaels?!" The man in black looks at him his reply was confused and slow, "I don't work for Lephar… I work for Fat Chuck." Oliver didn't lower his bow but he was extremely confused. "Who the hell is 'Fat Chuck'?" Oliver growled with annoyance. He heard frantic clicks from Felicity's keyboard with the occasional ding. "Fat Chuck is an important mob boss in Central City. Why would he send someone to my house?" Oliver winced at the memory of Felicity flying against the wall. "Why did Fat Chuck send you to Miss. Smoak's house? What did she do to upset him?" Oliver drew his bow back even further. The man in black laughed a deep hearty chuckle, it was low and eerie like something out of a movie or a crappy TV show, like the CW or KOZYL. It took every ounce of Oliver's strength not to kill the man and his pompous attitude, and clear disrespect for him.

"You won't kill me Arrow." Oliver titled his head to one side "And why's that?"

"I know you, you don't kill people you are weak." Oliver's voice dropped to match the deadliness of the arrogant swine before him. "Don't mistake my mercy for weakness." He warned. Oliver heard his other comm. (The one he gave Roy crackle on.) But no noise came out. Oliver released the arrow from his grasp sending plumb into the man's knee. A scream erupted from his throat that reminded him of the time Thea's Balloon was taken by Tommy. Sure she was mad, but when Tommy accidentally let it go she screamed so loud and long that she could have shattered glass had there been any around to be shattered.

Finally Roy's voice came into his ear "So Oliver this might be nothing but you asked he to call you if anything weird happened so I was just going to say…" Oliver became nerves. "Spit it out." He ordered him. The other man must have thought he was talking to him because right after Roy finished his quickly spouted rant he began his. "Well she asked me to go to her house and pick up some paper work and when I got there she called again and asked if I could pick up some prescription medication from her bathroom cabinet. So I was like 'Yeah sure' I guess I thought it would be like something for arthritis or whatever you get pills for, but the only thing in the cupboard was Hydrocodone. That's like one step below Morphine…"as soon as Roy said his, the other man's secret come out. "It has nothing to do with Felicity! Fat Chuck wanted me to put a car bomb on her car and make her home look like someone had been in it. But when I went inside someone had already been there, and I'm guessing from the picture on her bed it was Lephar Carmichaels." Oliver sat stunned for a moment as he processed the information.

The facts where these: And unnamed man has hired Lephar Carmichaels to kill Felicity. Another man named Fat Chuck from Central City also wanted her dead. So he hired 'So Sad' here to fix it up.

"But he doesn't care about Felicity this isn't about her. It's about revenge." Oliver was still trying to catch up, "Killing Miss. Smoak would be revenge on whom?" He asked. So Sad gave a strangled smile "Her Father."

They sat in silence for a while no one said a word. Not John, not Roy, and not Felicity. Oliver looked to the east to see the sun peaking thought the tall buildings. Oliver shot another arrow, but this time not at the man but at a tall building and swung away. Well actually he swung behind a corner then got into the SUV with Digg and drove back to Verdent.

By the time Digg and Oliver where back down the stairs Roy was back and trying (and failing) to calm Felicity.

"I'm going to die!" She shrieked.

"You aren't going to die." Roy said taking a step closer. She was pounding the keys on her keyboard and crying. Honestly Oliver was surprised she had managed to keep it together so long.

"I'm going to be murdered because my dead-beat dad I never even knew has enemies in the Mafia!"

"If it helps, it's just a Gang; it's not actually the Mafia.

"No, Roy! No, that doesn't help!" She spins her chair standing up quickly to see Roy, Oliver, and Diggle looking very concerned. She plopped back into her chair and covered her face with her hands. On her computer desk was a pile of QC papers she fully intended to finish reviewing tonight. Well, that was before her missing father turned out to be the reason she was being hunted. Potentially both attempts were his fault.

Oliver looked at Roy and motioned his head towards the door. Roy shuffled his feet and him and Diggle went back upstairs. Oliver slowly walked over to Felicity's broken form. She must have been exhausted, She couldn't have been getting more than four hours of sleep, a night, and that wasn't even taking into account the time she had secretly spent doing the paperwork for him. He placed his bow and gloves on a table he passes on his way to her.

He kneels down in front of her and places a hand on her cheek only to find it wet with tears. He used the same hand to position his thumb under her chin and lift her head up enough so she can look at him. "Hey," he says in a soft voice barely above a whisper. "It's going to be okay. We are going to figure this out." He cups her cheek with one hand uses his thumb to wipe away a tear. He hated seeing her cry. He hated it when she was sad, or mad, or angry. Any emotion other than happiness felt like an abomination on her beautiful face.

"Now why don't you change into something more comfortable? You are safe as long as long as you are here, so how about some sleep?" She looked at him with pure exhaustion written all over her face. Slowly she nodded her head yes and picked up her bag and walked towards the bathroom. She had taken off her heels so her small feet were silent as they padded across the floor. Oliver stood up and leaned against her desk looking at the papers that now took up a majority of space.

Felicity closed the door behind her not wanting to think about anything. She looked in the mirror to see her empty and expressionless face staring back at her. There were bags forming under her eyes and looked the picture of defeat. She lifts one arm up to hold her dress zipper still while she maneuvers the other arm under to pull the zipper down, but before she can even make it to the zipper she yelps in pain. Within seconds Oliver was knocking on the door. "Are you okay?" he asks his voice gave away no indication that he was worried just checking up on her but she knew better than that.

Felicity opened the door and looks up to see his brows furrowed and a worried expression etched on his face. She tries to give him a smile but just sighs, "My back hurts a little that's all. Would you mind?" She turns her back to him and indicates towards the zipper. Oliver takes a step closer. He was maybe three inches away from her and she could feel his breath on the nape of her neck. He gently held the top of her dress in one hand while he pulled the zipper down with the other. His hands lightly trace down her back as he unzips, causing her to shiver. That particular dress had a long zipper. As he passed her shoulder blades he hisses at what he sees. He continues to unzip her until he reaches the small of her back and uses both hands to pull the soft fabric off her back. A deep bruise is painted across her back the same size and shape as a two by four.

"You must have hit a support beam." He said softly tracing the bruise lightly with his finger. "I know" she whispered back. Oliver continued to unzip her dress once he reach the end he lightly dragged his fingers back up her back and rested them on her shoulder pushing off the fabric.

Her dress fell to the floor with almost no sound. His fingers lightly rested on her shoulders. She quietly turned around to face him. Her breasts were barely covered by her small, silk, black lace bra. His eyes flickered down to see she had matching small, black, lace underwear. Their faces where inches apart and both of their eyes had dilated to adjust for the closeness in proximity and sexual tension, "Well uh, thanks," She muttered "Yeah," was all he said before she quickly stepped back into the bathroom and closed the door behind her heart hammering. She leaned against the door as she slid down to the ground.

Oliver stepped back the trance broken. He didn't know where it had come from. He walked away terrified of his feeling he grabbed the metal bar to the salmon ladder and began to work out his frustration and the sudden tightness in his pants, that needed to stop it because there was no hiding anything in those tight leather pants of his. Almost a minuet later Felicity reemerged from the bathroom in short tight, blue and purple plaid fabric shorts, perfectly accenting her figure with a matching tight, blue tank top with thick straps. That was so not helping. She sat back down at her computer and started typing. He started working more aggressively. He had calmed down a bit but just looking at her long blond hair was a serious distraction. He couldn't be thinking about her like this. He didn't want to hurt her, or put her in harm's way. He had dealt with these feeling before by stuffing them down in a dark place not wanting to act on them and ruin their relationship. He dropped from the bar and walked over to her desk putting his shield back up to prevent what happened earlier from happening again. "You should get dome rest. I have to go to QC but I'll have Roy drop by later and Digg will bring you lunch." He started walking towards the door. "Oliver," she called out after him. 'Crap she wanted to talk about it' he thought "You might want to change before you go upstairs. You know unless you want the all early-morning-drinkers and women-doing-the-walk-of-shame-crowd to know you are the Arrow." 'Thank god she didn't bring it up' he thought "Right." Oliver went to the bathroom changed and left for QC.

Felicity released a breath she didn't know she was holding. That. That cannot happen again. Felicity walked over to the cot and wrapped herself up in the blankets that smelled like Oliver. She closed her eyes but she kept seeing Oliver in front of her, his eyes dropping to see her naked body. She had nothing to be ashamed of. She had pale skin and a flat stomach. Maybe no abs like Oliver or like Sara had, had. But she was fit. She closed her eyes. If she wasn't going to be able to sleep without thinking about it she might as well make the most of it. Besides that was much better to think about than her estranged father being the reason she is most likely going to die. That was an extremely sobering thought. Suddenly she felt too tired to move, much less think. A wave of exhaustion took hold and she drifted off into a not-so-pleasant sleep. But at this point sleep was sleep and she would take what she could get.

**A/N: So about this chapter… I had the hardest time writing it. It was difficult. I only have so many words in my vocabulary, and it is mostly just a filler chapter but I still hope you like it. I wanted some more sexual tension because I was worried Oliver was acting to distant when we all know as far as Felicity goes he is anything but, all the "plutonic" Shoulder touching and "Plutonic" hand holding and my favorite "Plutonic" eye sex.**


	4. It Was All Fun And Games, Until It Wasnt

**A/N: Hey sorry it took so long to get this chapter out. I kept going to type it and end up on imgur and 4chan for hours. Also I've been watching waaaayyy to much American Horror Story. Talk about an overload of scary. I'm worried it might be leaking into my writing. I know where my story is supposed to go but I'm trying to figure out how to get there. It's like driving around, back-alley woodsy roads with Apple Maps. It's confusing and in general frustrating. And yes if you were wondering Chubouski, is, in fact, a name from the TV Show Enlisted. **

**P.S. I didn't spend a lot of time editing this chapter, hope it's still legible. Enjoy.**

Chapter 4: It Was All Fun and Games, Until It Wasn't

Felicity ran down a long hallway, where the hell was she? She turned right, then left, then right again. The long dark, brick hallways where endless, and making her very scared. "OLIVER!" She called. She had been running for a while now. Carefully noting every turn she took. "DIGG!" She cried out in anguish. She started to turn another corner when she saw, The Man in Black. "Stephen?" She whimpered. It was the monster who rigged her car with a bomb.

He began sprinting towards her; she turned on her heels to run when she tripped landing face down in the sand, wait, sand? Her eyes glanced up to see she was on the beach. She looked down to see her hand had been reaching out for a shell when she had tripped. She stood up, but she wasn't as tall as she remembered. In fact a little taller than three feet was nowhere close to her original height. Even though she was short, she wasn't this short. Involuntarily she reached down and picked up the shell. It was like someone else was controlling her and she could do nothing but sit and watch.

Her 40inch body waddled over to a man on a towel sitting on the beach watching her with the biggest smile on his face. "Daddy!" Her voice rang out in her ears, making her sick. Her father stood up to meet her half way. He was Six feet and four inches tall. And her mother was only five feet tall, which would explain her short and tiny stature. Her father had the best beard. It was a sea captain's beard and that might partly be due to the fact that he was a captain of his own ship, the Reina Christina, named after the famous boat in the Spanish American war. Her father was a huge history buff. But he loves ships and boats. She remembered she had a dog once name Arizona. (After the U.S.S Arizona at Pearl Harbor)

Her father bent down and put his hands on her shoulders. "Lissy, I love you so much. I would never leave you. Ever." Felicity became angry. She was tired of being the lackadaisical little girl fooled by her father. "But you did," She says angrily. "You left me! You left me with her! You knew and you left me anyways! you never loved me!" With every word she grew until she was back to her normal height. She shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, "I won't ever forgive you!" She opened her eyes again to see Oliver looking scared and hurt by her words.

"Oliver, no, I didn't mean it!" She went to touch his face but his head rolled off his shoulders blood began flowing everywhere. "OH MY GOD NO!" She screamed in bloody murder. Behind where Oliver had been standing was a man dressed in solid red with black accents holding his sword as if he had just swung at a baseball.

"Felicity run!" She heard Sara's voice in here ear and felt someone pulling on her wrist.

"OLIVER!" She cried,

"There's no time, he's dead. We need to get you out of here." She began to run with Sara, on the beach like she and Sara used to do before Sara had left to be with the league again. Felicity glanced back to see Lephar wasn't even trying to follow. Her head whipped around and she hit something hard. She began to stumble back when strong hands grabbed her and spun her around. "Hello Miss. Smoak, long time no see." She didn't have to see him to know who he was. "But I guess that's what happens when you die." Count Vertigo said his breath ticking her ear. She was back in Queen Consolidated executive offices. She felt a prick on her neck and she knew it was the Vertigo.

"I'm sorry but I can't let you do that." A deep low Australian accent grumbled. Tears where now steaming from her eyes blurring her vision. She had lost her glasses on the beach when she fell and that really wasn't helping. An Arrow swooshed past her head hitting The Count between the eyes. "No, no, no please! Please leave me alone! I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" Felicity screamed, not to Slade but to everyone who was listening. Why couldn't they just leave her alone?

"Felicity!" She heard a voice growl. She saw Oliver standing over her "No!" She cried "You're dead! Leave me alone." She felt hands grab her arms, very tightly "No, no, no, no, no!" She screamed trying to move but the hands tightened. "Ah!" She screamed and threw a punch her fist making contact with someone's face. "Barbie, wake up!" She heard a command "No! Please I didn't do anything!"

"I know that Barbie, wake up! I may have Mirakuru but that still hurt! Come on wake up!" Barbie? Oliver doesn't call her Barbie. She slowly opened her eyes to see Roy sitting on top of her on the cot pinning her arms to her side and immobilizing her feet. "What the hell Roy!" She screams at him. He just smiled and rolled his eyes. "Finally, you've been screaming for almost two consecutive minutes without breathing. You have a damn good pare lungs on you." Felicity's breathing evened out but was still labored. "Roy you're hurting my arms." He looked down to see his death grip on her arms. "Oh sorry, but for not being able to bench press ten pounds you pack a powerful punch." He released her arms and jumped off the cot.

"Oliver asked me to check up on you today, but not to wake up. But it's a good thing I got here when I did because I could hear you screaming from upstairs. Any later and you might have scared the pants off a cocktail waitress." Felicity sat up and rubbed her arms. "I'm sorry, I didn't me-" Roy cut her off.

"Can it Barbie, your life was threatened, and you found out you AWOL father has a lot of powerful enemies intent on revenge." He walks over to a sparing dummy and hits it a few times. "I think you have earned the right to some bad dreams and a little healthy screaming. If I were you I would want to hit something." Felicity looked at him closely following his every movement "It's not that I don't want to punch something, but I can't make a fist when I first wake up. I don't know why, my hands are too weak and shaky…"

Roy walks back over to her and holds out a hand offering to help her up. "Go change into your workout clothes if you still keep them here. I've been showing Thea a few ways to work out her anger and confusion with violence. Maybe it will help you. Besides I think you can punch just fine in the morning." He rubbed his jaw pretending it still hurt. He smirked remembering how Thea had always told him violence was never the answer, and then proceeded to punch until she cried.

Felicity changed into a Navy blue slim-fitting hoodie, with red stripes down the arms and matching itty-bitty Asics running shorts in the same red as the strips on the hoodie. She also wore a matching red head band. She put her hair in a loose bun slightly off the top of her head. She also put on her pair of black puma shoes.

"Dang, girl. Can you ever not match?" He said sarcastically.

Felicity sighed and shrugged. "Coming from the guy dating Thea Queen, that's rich." She loved the way Roy made light of the whole situation. It made her feel normal again. Not like a walking dead girl. "Unlike you." She finished her lips turning up into a smile.

"There's the Felicity we all know and love. Stylish, sweet, and sarcastic. If you go that long again without smiling you might want to see a doctor. I hear hanging around with Oliver can really ruin your sense of humor."

They spar for a bit until about twelve, and she is exhausted. Her back still hurts but she took hydrocodone. Roy hasn't even broken a sweat yet and continues to spar with a dummy. She peels off her hoodie and she is now wearing a gray sports bra. "What is going on here?" Roy and Felicity both look at the back of the lair where Digg is walking across the room with two bags of Big Belly Burger. Felicity looks at Roy as if he was supposed to say something helpful. "Those some a nasty bruises Felicity," She thought she was talking about her back until he reaches up and touches her bicep. "What happened?" She panicked for a bit and then murmured. "I was having a nightmare and Roy was trying to hold me still... Ya, know, same-ole, same-ole."

"Roy did that to you?" Digg questions, very unhappy with her answer to his question.

"What the hell Roy, I thought you said you had your strength under control!" No one knew when Oliver had entered the building but his comment was coming from across the room. He looked like he was going to kill him. "Oliver! It's okay! I was having a nightmare. He was keeping me from hurting myself!" She desperately tried to come between the approaching Oliver and the very worried Roy. She stepped in front of him and they were inches away from each other as she held him back. "I'm okay, I'm fine. I already punched him for it. Well, not on purpose. I would never purposely punch anyone. Its mean and violence never solves anything. Not that when you punch criminals it's bad, they totally have it coming,

"I'm just saying that people in everyday normal life shouldn't punch each other every time they disagree, like normal-non-vigilanting-people. Like accountants and lawyers." Felicity stopped hoping her little ramble had calmed him down. She looked up at him to his face a few inches away from his. Suddenly her mind flashed the images from last night in the bathroom. She remembered his hands tracing up her back, and her dress falling to the floor, and from the look on Oliver's face she could safely assume he was thinking about the same thing. She nervously bit her lower lip. His eyes darted down and watched her lips. 'Crap.' she thought she let go of her lip and ran her tongue across it to put some moisture in them. She suddenly remembers she was only wearing a bra and started to feel incredibly self-conscious.

"Well," Coughed Roy trying to break the thick sexual tension in the room. "If you aren't going to kill me I have to be going. I have a lunch date with Thea, and if I'm late to that she will kill me." Roy slipped away and Oliver looked up to give him the Don't-you-dare-touch-my-sister stare of death. Felicity backed up from Oliver content he wasn't going to kill Roy. She turned around to walk back to her desk when she heard Digg gasp. "Felicity, your back!" he walks forward and places his hand on her back "Does it hurt?" He asks "No." she shrugs his hand off her back. Even though, heck yes it hurt so badly. But she didn't want them to think she was weak. So she went with no. She grabbed her bag and went to the bathroom to take a shower. She was becoming increasingly more tired. She disappeared behind in the bathroom door.

Digg gave a pointed look at Oliver but he didn't say anything, just raised an eyebrow. "What?" Oliver snapped. He was sick and tired of Diggle and his disapproving sighs. "Nothing, I just think you don't really have a valid excuse anymore."

"I can't, Digg. You know that." Oliver looks in the direction of bathroom when he hears the shower turn on. "Well if her father is in trouble and they are sending people after her. She is safer closer to you. You pushing her away will most likely get her killed."

"Drop it." Oliver growls and sits in Felicity's chair. He couldn't do it. He couldn't have this conversation with her in the other room. Digg doesn't say anything but he watches Oliver carefully.

When Felicity come out of the bathroom a few minutes later she is dressed in an orange blazer over a loose fitting grayish blue top tucked into an Aztec patterned skirt. Her neck was adorned in a gold and black chain necklace. And she wore a pair of matching grayish, blue five inch heels. Her hair was in a loose and curly pony-tail that swung back and forth when she walked.

"For someone who looks like the poster child for domestic violence you look pretty good." Digg says jokingly. Felicity smiles and tilts her head at Oliver who is sitting in her chair. He stands up and walks over to sit next to Digg. She takes a seat at her station and pulls up some screens.

"What have you found on Lephar? And what have you turned up about 'Fat Chuck'?" Oliver asks. Felicity gives a sideways glance to him and looked at the ground, clearly upset, but unwilling to talk about it.

"Fat Chuck is high ranking mobster in Central city. His real name is Charles Chubouski, He owns a majority of the west end, and not a lot of people are willing to fight him over it. He has several people in on his operation and payroll. From the looks of the response teams over there, I would have to guess a few police officers and maybe even a few medics." She looked at the screen in front of her where an enlarged picture of an over-weight man in an orange jumper stares back at her. "Chubouski, he literally couldn't have a more fitting name." She huffs indignantly. "And Lephar…." She sighs a deep exasperated breathe. "Absolutely nothing, I better get comfortable because I'm going to be down here forever. On the bright side, I'm going to have a lot of free time. Maybe I can learn how to knit. I've always wanted to know how. That and crochet, I'm not sure the practical uses yet, maybe I'll crochet a shawl. If I'm going to be down here I might get cold. So a shawl might just come in handy."

Diggle smiles at her. "You won't be in here forever, we'll catch him. And we will sort this thing out with your dad-"

"He is not my dad!" She snapped. Digg sighed and Oliver shifted uncomfortably in his seat next to Diggle. "Well then, in the meantime you can go upstairs right now and get something to drink." Felicity raises an eyebrow but is too tired to decline the offer; all she wants is to get out of this hole so badly. She stands up and walks upstairs just happy to be above ground

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Oliver motions to the retreating form of their dear friend and partner. "Letting her go upstairs?" Diggle queries "With Felicity's security system we would know if a fly broke wind within a forty mile radius." Diggle taps a few keys and the security cameras from the club come up. It's almost empty except for a small blond behind the counter making coffee, with apparently a splash of vodka.

"I'm not sure how good that's going to taste." Diggle hums a disapproving, but facetious, comment at that. "Roy said she took Hydrocodone. She really shouldn't be drinking." Oliver says standing up walking to the stairs.

"Thanks for the coffee." Oliver stood right behind her pinning her between the counter and his body. He arm reaches over her shoulder and plucks the mug from her hand.

"Hey!" She spins around to see how close he is. She knew she might not be able to control her mouth around him, but being this close to him made it worse. "I didn't make that for you, I made it for me. I'm not your coffee fetcher you got me? I may be your executive assistant but that does not make me your executive coffee maker. If that was the promotion you offered to me in the beginning of the year I would have turned it down with force. That is not worth the dirty rumors about you and me. Not that anything is worth that because-" She sucked in a breath "Never mind I'm going to stop talking I'm just making it worse." She reached up to grab the coffee, but he held it high in the air, and despite her heels she was not tall enough to reach the hot, caffeinated beverage. She took a step closer so they were nose to nose and reached a hand up his arm once she realized it was a losing battle she just grabbed his wrist trying, and failing, to pull his arm down to reach the drink. She quit pulling and slid her hand down his forearm, and half way down his biceps. Her finger tips lightly dusting the surface of his skin. His breath was ragged as was hers. Both of their eyes dilated. Felicity cleared her throat after she realized what was happening, "The point is that's not your coffee."

"I know that, Felicity." He said he said in deep, and oddly sexual tone. Now it was his turn to clear his throat. His voice softened, "I also know you put Vodka in it." She loved it when he talked to her like that. That tone could melt frozen butter. He looked at the coffee and then back at her. "I also know you are taking pain pills. And I'll be damned if I let you take both." Felicity frowned and furrowed her brows making wrinkles on her forehead. "Is there anything you don't know about me?" Oliver smiled a genuine and rare smile. He put the ceramic mug on the counter behind her, and placed his thumbs over her forehead to "Smooth" out the wrinkles. His hands stopped at her cheeks cupping them lightly. "Quite a bit actually." He backed away from her and retrieved another mug from the cupboard and began filling it up with coffee. "Black, no sugar, no creamer, and no vodka," He put the new cup in her hand.

"Do you know where your father is?" Oliver asks his voice full of concern.

Felicity chewed on her lip and leaned against the counter behind her. In a small voice she answered. "No, and I never wanted to. After he left me and my mom, I was so hurt. I was scared and angry. I kept thinking there must have been something I could have done to keep him from leaving."

Oliver grabbed her hands in his, but kept a further distance. "Hey," He used his left hand to lift her head to face him. "It wasn't your fault."

She smiled back "Oh I know that now." Felicity lifted herself on to the counter top and crossed her legs. "But when I was a child I only knew what my mother told me." Oliver didn't know her mother but hated her already. Anyone who made Felicity, his girl, Felicity feel like less then she was, wasn't worth the air space and the fossil fuels.

Felicity's face paled and her mouth dropped open her eyes focusing on something behind him. His body went ridged and he quickly turned around to see nothing out of the ordinary. He looked back at Felicity very concerned.

"Oh my god! I didn't even think about that! I'm the worst daughter in the world! I was so obsessed with myself I didn't even think about her!" She pushed Oliver away from her and hopped off the counter running towards the stairs

"Felicity!" Oliver called out surprised by her outburst. She ran down the stairs and to her desk where Dig was sitting confused, he had been listening and watching from the cameras keeping an eye out for any unwanted visitors.

"Felicity what's wrong?" He stood up and grabbed her forearms mindful of the bruises on her biceps. Oliver had followed her down the stairs. She was in hysterics rambling about what an awful person she was and how unthoughtful she was. "…and I didn't even stop to think god! What is wrong with me? We have to go! Or you don't but I have to she may be mean and a drunk but she's my mother! I didn't even-"

"FE-LIC-ITY!" Oliver growled out every syllable and spun her around to face him cupping her face in his hands making sure she had to stop and focus. "What are you going on about?"

Felicity took a deep breath. "My mom, if the people trying to fulfil a desire for revenge against my father are targeting his direct family they go after his daughter, right?" Oliver and Diggle nod their heads in recognition "Well, what happens when their first choice drops off the grid?" She asks trying to help them catch up.

Suddenly it clicks Oliver's body goes ridged "They would have a backup plan, better known as your mother." He walks over to the salmon ladder to grab his coat, "Diggle, get the car ready. We're going to Las Vegas."

**A/N: Also please leave a glowing, or fading, –it's up to you- review about my chapters with any recommendations or details you don't like. As for the finale I'm ignoring Roy's Mirakuru or lack thereof. And Thea never left. At least I don't think so. One of my favorite friendships other than Digg/Felicity is Roy/Felicity so prepare for a lot of that. **


	5. Here We Go

**IN case you wanted to know. My sister compared Oliver and Felicity to Mr. Big and Leslie from Word Girl…. SO yes, my life is pointless. I'm sorta dealing with some Oliver feels in this chapter. I hope you like it. We haven't really see Oliver deal with all his man-pain on the show but this is sorta how I imagine it happening. WELCOME TO VEGAS! I did a butt load of research and if you want to see pictures of the Hotel and stuff it's Four Seasons Hotel in Vegas lobby. Just type into google images, I have sorta envisioned them in the presidential suite but I had to visually edit it because they only have two rooms in real life. **

Chapter 5: Here We Go

By the time Felicity had packed her clothes, Oliver and Digg packed theirs, and they alerted Roy on what was happening it was well past six. "So what am I supposed to do?" Roy asked, flustered he wasn't allowed to go. "Can't I go? I have always wanted to go to the casinos!" Oliver was mad Roy wouldn't just back down. This was Felicity's mother and they are behind already. What happens if they get there and her mother has been chopped into pieces? He couldn't have Felicity go through something like that. It had been bad enough when his mother had a blade run through her heart. But not even he could imagine having a mother minced like a garnish on a salad. It was morbid. Before Oliver had a chance to open his mouth Felicity chimed in.

"You want to go to the same casino my mother with be scantily clad in leather, serving booze to alcoholics and men cheating their wives, while she tries to sell her body for extra cash?" She tilts her head sarcastically. "Yeah sounds like a blast to me, too."

Roy shifts and takes a step back. "I'm sorry, yeah I'll hold the fort here." He steps back away from the Bentley that Diggle has just loaded the last bag into.

"Alright Oliver Felicity, We're ready to go." Digg holds the door open for Felicity to climb into the back seat. Oliver climbs in behind her.

The ride there is quite, Oliver watches Felicity as she wordlessly taps away at her key board hacking into traffic cameras deleting herself from the back seat. Making sure she was impossible to find. Her fingers worked so fast, things popped up and dissipated before he could even read the screen. Her body just vanished from the back of the car in all of the videos and pictures. "I contacted Detective Lance." Oliver says softly in the voice he typically uses just for her. You know the one that melts icebergs. "I told him about the situation with Carmichaels. Once he figured out what you were his target he seemed very distressed. And a lot more willing to pick up the pace the department as a whole wasn't." Felicity hadn't glanced up from her screen yet. "I never realized you two were so close." Felicity finally graced him by looking at him with her big beautiful blue eyes. They shook him down to his very core. He could imagine kissing her for the first time, her eyes wide open in shock has he slid his hand over her- NO! He couldn't think like that. He couldn't risk letting her get hurt because of him.

"Yeah after Sara left again, he used to come to me asking for updates all the time. I had to keep telling him I didn't know anything and eventually I think he started to use me as his replacement for Sara. Not that I mind. Detective Lance it great. But I never know what to say so we would just get together I'd tell him the latest thing from the league and we would have diner and a movie. She set her tablet in her lap finishing up whatever she had been so invested in, they had been driving for a few hours now and Las Vegas was only a few hours away. But it was almost ten and no one had slept the night before, and everyone was very tired.

"yeeaaaass…" She yawned, as she finished typing and put her tablet on the seat next to her

Oliver smiled, "You should rest." He said silently. Her tired eyes looked up at him. All he wanted to do was hold her until she drifted into a pleasant dream, maybe about waking up on Christmas and finding an entire computer and operating system complete with a monitor the size of a flat screen T.V., but she was Jewish so maybe something a little less Christmas and a little more Hanukkah. But he had no clue how Hanukkah worked so he just settled for a birthday.

"Aren't you going to ask me why I was so excited?" She asks her head leaning back and finding the head rest.

"Why were you so excited?" He asked with a small uptick of the lips.

She gave a big goofy grin. "I just created a program that will hack any camera we pass and edit me out of the frame." She motioned to the tablet next to her. "And I did it all on my tablet."

Oliver watched her for a moment and her head lulled to one side. She was so peaceful he couldn't help himself. He slid over to her side and gathered her now still and sleeping body into his arms. This was what he had wanted to do for so long. He figured if he just held her for a moment it would make him calmer. She was safe for those moments, in his arms. All the worry he had pent up in the last two days was ebbed. "Digg," He addressed him for the first time since they left the state. "We should stop at a hotel for the night." Digg looked at him through the rear-view mirror and shook his head. They passed the notorious "Welcome to Vegas" sign.

"I'm so tired I was about to suggest the same thing. And if you said 'No' I was going to drug you and do it anyways." Yup that sounded like Diggle.

"Felicity, Felicity wake up. We're stopping at a hotel." He hated to wake her; she looked so peaceful sleeping on his shoulder. He couldn't help but think about how much he wanted this. How much he would kill to wake up next to her every morning asleep curled into his side, or his arms wrapped around her diminutive frame. She stirred next to him. "Five more minutes," She mumbled scooting closer to him nuzzling into his side. He smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder rubbing it slightly.

"If you wake up now you can go to sleep in two minutes but next time in a bed." Diggle had pulled into the parking lot of a Four Seasons hotel and began unloading the bags. Felicity opened her eyes and sat up. "How long was I asleep for?" She inquired smoothing out her jacket and skirt.

"Almost an hour." He said exiting the car. He helped her out and put a hand on her back guiding her towards the entrance. She went inside with her tablet and electronics bag, which she refused to let anyone touch, while Oliver and Diggle got the suite cases.

The building on the outside was fabulously designed with large fountains and extravagant car port. She went inside the building to be no less amazed. The extravagant flooring and the marble pillars. In the center of the room was a round table with an ornate bouquet on it, "Holy smokes…" She mumbled. Her eyes wondered over to the bar with red curtains and marble counter tops and pillars marking its perimeter. Oliver had used his fancy-shmancy check book to rent the presidential suite. It was as flamboyant as the rest of the hotel.

They all loaded into different rooms, one for each. She hadn't gone into this blind. Once she figured out that she needed to make a visit to her mother she was already hatching a plan. She couldn't take Oliver and Diggle to the home she had grown up in. it was a pigsty before she left. She could only imagine how gross it was now, the red lamp burning in the window hailing customers. It was repulsive. She sure as hell wasn't going to take them to the casino where she worked. It had ruined her idea of what a mother was supposed to look like, with the tight fitting reviling leather dresses hefting her breasts to make them look like they were spilling out of the dress.

Felicity knew exactly what she needed to do. She threw her suite case onto the bed. Everyone had gone into their own rooms getting situated and ready for bed. She riffled through her luggage and pulled out her tight fitting golden dress she had only worn one other time. And of course she had the luxury of having a bomb collar strapped to her neck that time, and a pair of matching golden heels. She shoved them into her hand bag and turned on her private shower. She grabbed the stationary from her desk as wrote '_I'll be back in a jiffy_." leaving the note on her bed she snuck out of her room, grabbed the keys off the coffee table and tiptoed out the door.

Oliver finished putting his stuff away, took a shower, and got dressed in sweats and white T-shirt before returning to the living area of the hotel. It had high ceilings and soft carpet flooring. He walked over to Felicity's door and listened. He could hear the shower running. Not for the first time he imagined her naked under a fountain of water rubbing soap all over her skin, her hair wet and sticking to the side of her face. He bit his lip and walked over to the little kitchen area, to pour some Vodka shots. A little alcohol would make him relax a bit.

"You know," a voice said from across the room. Diggle had emerged from his room in a similar garb and was walking towards him "Drinking isn't going to extinguish that burning sensation in your chest you feel every time you look at her." Oliver shook his head.

"Please, don't." He begged knowing where this was going.

"Oliver it's getting frustrating. This push and pull you have going with her. We all know how she feels about you and I think you feel the same way. A blind man could see that you love her. I've had a feeling what you said a year ago with Slade wasn't just a ruse. Once you said those words you knew, you just keep refusing to admit it to yourself." Diggle walked up to the other side of the bar "I wasn't a hundred percent sure until I saw your not-very-skillful-exchange upstairs while she was getting coffee. Why can't you just put the both of you out of misery and go into that room and tell her!"

"It's More complicated than that!" Oliver bit out.

"No, Oliver. It's only as complicated as you make it."

"Every woman I have ever had feelings for has ended poorly. Being a Queen has already put a target on my back as well as those I love. And being the Arrow. I can't have another disaster relationship. Not with her. I can't have a repeat of Laurel, or Sara, Helena, or McKenna. I couldn't live with myself if one more person got hurt because of me. Especially Felicity. I can't do that. I can't just paint a bulleye on her back. I might as well put a sign over her head saying "what to hurt the arrow? Want to ruin Oliver Queen? Take me!" I CAN'T loose her Dig. I can't." Oliver's voice was thick with emotion he had pent up for nearly three years.

"Oliver in case you haven't noticed shes already in your life! She spends 99% of her waking life with you. In addition everyone already thinks Oliver Queen has some relationship with her so that part is bull. And if you haven't picked up on this already with Slade and The Count, they can figure it out with or without your confirmation and have already begun using her against you." Digg gives him a frustrated huff.  
"You can no longer keep her safe by keeping her at arms length. Now people know she's the daughter of a Mob Boss she won't be safe alone anyways. If she dies because you are avoiding your feelings. Because you can't stop being the densest creature on earth for five seconds and realize the only way to keep her safe is to let her into your life I will kill you myself. So take my advise Oliver, stop the pushing and stop punishing the both of you."

Diggle began walking towards the door, "I'm going to 'check on my car' and you should go talk to her. She won't wait for you forever. What are you going to do when another Barry Allen comes along with is dorky references and swoon-worthy nerd knowledge. I guarantee watching someone else sweep her off her feet will be a hundred times worse than her walking away from us."

Oliver knew he was right, he wasn't exactly sure when, or how. He just knew that sometime between the day he met her and now he had fallen in love with Felicity Smoak. He loved the way her heels clacked when she arrived in the foundry or walked into his office. He loved how she expressed herself with bright nail polish and lips. Those lips, he was always thinking about her bright, pink, or ruby red lips. He absolutely adored the way she would ramble, or accidentally say dirty things, and the lip biting. He always hated it when she bit her lips because after that all he could do was think about kissing those lips until they were bruised and swollen.

"Hey Oliver, you move the keys?" Digg asked from the door.

"No. I though you left them by the door?" Oliver's thoughts about his beautiful co-worker were interrupted.

"Right, I probably took them to my room." He began to go to his room and Oliver stood outside Felicity's room working up to courage to go in "And Oliver," Digg said before he could knock "Be careful, you only have one shot, you better make it count." Oliver nodded, understanding just how true it was. He knocked on the door and it pushed open slightly.

"Felicity?" He called into her room. No one answered. "Felicity!" Walks into her room to see her luggage has been riffle through, he saw her pajamas on her bed, He had memorized that fabric ever since she walked out of the foundry bathroom. His eyes caught sight of a little note on her pillow and he walked over to read it.

_I'll be back in a jiffy _

It read. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no….. He rushed into the bathroom not bothering to knock "FELICITY!" he yelled pulling back the curtain to see water running into an empty bath. He stormed out to find a confused Diggle in the living room.

"What's wrong? Is Felicity okay? I can't find the keys." Digg walked towards Oliver who stopped in the living room. "DAMN IT!" he yelled and flipped a table. "You aren't going to find the keys, Because Felicity took them!" He couldn't believe it, how could Felicity, smart beautiful Felicity, be so stupid!? She was on two peoples hit lists. And she hadn't even told them she left. All he wanted to do was keep her safe and she was gone.

Oliver ran into Felicity's room and grabbed her tablet. Careful not to exit out of anything, he pulled up the tracking system but it was locked. A message popped up on the screen that read.

_I'm sorry Oliver, but I need to do this alone. I know this city better than the back of my hand. Well not actually because I've never been bored enough to study and memorize every wrinkle on the back of my hand. But I did grow up here, and I know the ins and outs of the city. I know you're mad I left without you, or even without telling you but some things I just have to do alone. _

_As always, _

_Felicity_

This was not okay. This was the opposite of okay. He finally had the knowledge and courage to tell her how he really felt and she was gone. For all he knew the last memory of her would be her back walking into a now vacant room. And there was nothing he could do but wait. He had to wait and wait, and wait, and wait…

There was a frenzied knock on the door and he jumped up to answer it, it had been almost two hours. What the hell was taking her so long? She was dead. Oh god she was dead and this was the police telling him they found her body. He didn't bother checking the peep hole as he swung the door open reviling a very scuffed up Felicity with a limp older woman in her arms. She had carried/dragged all the way to the hotel.

**Oh boysa! You guys get to meet her mother next chapter. And what a surprise that will be. Just a warning I have a very love/hate relationship planned. Plesh review! I had spaghetti for diner and put a crap load of old cheese on it. I think it might have been bad. Ugh I think I'm going to be sick. However I plan on releasing the next chapter within the next few days. Maybe even tomorrow if you are good. **


	6. Spreads Like Fire

**A/N: Hey i have once again brought you an update. you didn't even have to wait a whole week, lucky dawgs! anyways please enjoy. **

Chapter 6: Spreads like Fire

Felicity closes the door behind her very slowly and quietly. She didn't want them to see this. She knew it was enviable that they would meet her eventually. But the longer she could postpone it the better. At least this way she could make her mother look presentable. And if the stars were on her side tonight, maybe her mother and chosen not to accompany all the other whores at work today. Maybe she was passed out at home with some broke and equally disgusting stranger in bed next to her. Felicity thought about when she was a little girl, nearly seven, sitting on the living room floor on her knees. The carpet was dirty but soft and provided her with an adequate working space. She would disassemble and reassemble the T.V. and her mother would stumble in drunk, and quickly grab her arm and throw her into her room. "You," Her mother would point at her more for her own sake than Felicity's, most likely trying to find the real Felicity in her drunken double vision. "You lock the door, put on your head phones and listen to that fancy radio I bought you. If you try to come out before I tell you I will punish you. Got me?" Then she and a man would slip into her mother's bedroom. By the time Felicity was eight she knew the drill. Her mother would come in and point at her bedroom door. "If you weren't here I wouldn't have to do this you know!" Felicity would nod and do as she was told. Locking the door she would put on her head phones and listen the Yo-Yo Ma, Ludwig van Beethoven, or Frederic Chopin CD she had 'borrowed' from the library. She didn't even know how the library system worked. Her mom said it was theirs to keep. So she kept them.

Felicity had developed a love for computer around the same time she had discovered her love for classical music. When she was ten her mother managed to steal or buy (She honestly still didn't know) her, a piano of her own. When Felicity wasn't doing homework, or fiddling with wires and computers she was teaching herself how to play the piano. It was, in a way, quite similar to typing on the computer. The keys went from A to F and her fingers would dance over them the same as a key board. By fifteen she could play Frederic Chopin's Minute Waltz in less than two minutes. Her fingers moved quickly over the key board playing to her mother while she sat in her room waiting for her (what she called Forget-Me-Now) A.K.A a roofie to kick in and wipe her memory of whatever she wanted to forget. Whether it had or had not have happened yet, Felicity didn't know.

The elevator gave a sweet sounding *Ding!* and the doors opened reviling two very drunk men. "Hey baby, aren't you a little sober to be up this late?" He breathed onto her face. It wasn't unfamiliar to her. Growing up she had been hit on all the time. Even as a dorky kid with glasses. If men had their heavy duty beer goggles on. They would think she was some older cocktail waitress, though that typically happened when she was looking for her mother in crappy casinos. "Why don't you come to our room and let us help you calm those nerves." He slurred out putting a hand on her shoulder trying to pull her out of the Elevator.

"Actually because I'm sober I can wisely decline. No offence but I don't want to wake up tomorrow with Herpes and A.I.D.s." She pushes him back and his other friend catches him.

"That's not very Lady like of you." They both try to seize control of her. 'Thank god for Diggle and Oliver's insistence she learn some basic self-defense' she thought

"Right now, I don't feel like being a lady." She smashes the first man in the face with her elbow knocking him out instantly, while the other man took her poor balance to his advantage and slammed her against the back of the elevator.

Another *Ding* and she was at the Lobby. She threw her head forward clanking skulls. He stumbled back losing his grip on her. Her hand instantly went up to her forehead "HOLY MOTHER OF GOOGLE THAT HURT!" She yelled stepping over the bodies. She exited the elevator to see a very startled couple. Her hands didn't leave her head. "They attacked me." She huffs and walks out of the Hotel.

It took her a while but within the first two minutes of searching and the hundredth time of pressing the unlock button she found the black Bentley parked in the back of the parking garage. She carefully backed out of the parking spot not wanting to get so much as a smudge on Diggs car. He may love her but she was ninety-nine percent sure he would rearrange her face if she hurt his wheels. Or scold her. That was even worse.

The sound of the car's tires on the dirt road was slightly unsettling as she drove through the Mobile Home village she grew up in. She didn't need the light to find her house. Despite the face she hadn't been home since she left for collage some things were ingrained into your brain. She pulled over to the side of the road and departed from the safety of the car. She hesitantly walked to the door and stopped before knocking. The last words her mother had said to her where 'I hate you' She knew somewhere in her mother's heart she didn't mean it. But at the time she had just threw all her clothes and computers into boxes and was shipping herself to M.I.T. She remembered the conversation as if it was yesterday:

* * *

_*Flash Back*_

"_Mom! I'm leaving now!" She called from the doorway to the living room where her mother was passed out on the couch. Her and her mother had a huge fight a few weeks back, after her mother learned she was leaving for collage. They hadn't talked much since. Eventually her mother had accepted the fact she was leaving. But not the fact she would succeed. _

"_SHUT UP! I'm sleeping." She yelled right back at her. _

_Felicity walked over to her mother who was buried in pillows and old throw blankets. "Mom, wake up. I want to say good bye." She walked over to her mom, asleep on the couch, and ripped the blankets off her. _

"_AHhhhgggg!" her mother screamed as the light hit her face. "God my head." _

"_You know mom, the mornings aren't supposed to hurt." She took her mother's empty wine glass, walked to the kitchen and put it in the sink. Felicity filled and brought her mother a glass of ice water. Something she had been doing for years now. Whenever her mother would get too drunk or take too many pills. _

"_I don't have to go to school! Why do I have to wake up?" She looked at the water cup and grabbed some of the pills off the coffee table. "Can I have my other glass back please?" She whined._

"_It's in the sink, get it yourself." Felicity said grabbing her last bag and went to the hallway. _

"_Go to school already, go! Go! Go!" Felicity's mother rested her hands in her head. "You are going to fail and come crawling back, and if I'm still sleeping when you come home don't you dare put my hand in a bowl of water again!" She picked her pillow off the floor and hurled at Felicity, who easily dodged it and laughed at her mother's crappy aim. "Shut up." She mumbled settling back down on the couch _

"_Bye! I love you too!" Felicity chirped before opening the door._

"_Could you bring me my pillow back?" she yelled after Felicity. "Close the shades?" She asked. Right before Felicity closed the door she hears her yell "I hate you!" _

* * *

_*Current day*_

Yes, there was a chance her mother never meant those words, it was a heat-of-the-moment-type thing. But it still had affected her deeply; making sure she never said she hated anyone, trying to be her happiest self, and always looking for the light in the darkest of times.

Felicity decided against knocking instead she pulled out her key chain she had taken with her. It had several keys on it, each one a different colour. Pink-Her house, Green- Verdant (Obviously) Red- Car (It was supposed to be the same colour as her red mini cooper but now she should probably paint it grey. For the charcoal and ash lump of metal sitting in her driveway if Detective Lance hadn't had it removed already. ) Blue- supply closet in the IT department where all the old computer and computer parts were, purple- the IT department, and finally black- her old home in Vegas.

She inserted the key into the slot when her eyes caught sight of the red bulb in the porch lamp, in a moment of anger her hand reached out and struck the bulb with her fist shattering it. Her knuckles began to bleed but she ignored the pain. She opened the door and shouted "MOM YOU HOME! ITS FELICITY!" She turned the lights on to find he most disturbing mess.

Boxes lined the wall and sex toys were splayed out all over the place. The carpet that had once been relatively white was now dark gray with several stains of precarious nature, clothes and other nasty fabrics draped over everything. Empty beer and wine bottles littered the floor. She slowly walked around the house taking it all in. She had cleaned the house spotless before she left. The bright white carpets and the newly scrubbed kitchen floors, the kitchen… she entered the kitchen to see old plates stacked everywhere. It was the grossest thing she had seen since, well since the walked into QC a year ago to see Isobel Rochev's body on the floor throat slit, and dead… very, very, dead.

She walked into her mother's room it was clear she wasn't home. There were no lights on and no screaming coming from the bedroom. She pulled the drawers open on the dresser pulling out clothes that would cover her mother's body. And started to run out when she heard the distinct sound of a piano. She slowly walked over to her old bedroom door and gave it a slight push, the door creaked open reviling a small amount of light. She pushed it open the rest of the way. Her room was almost completely undisturbed since she left. Everything was in its exact place. Except, oh god! It was a picture of her mother taken from a distance. In the picture her mother was stumbling out of the GrandView Hotel and Casino where she worked hanging off some guy as they walked to her car. And pinning it to the wall was a dagger, just like the one in her apartment. Candles burnt around her room they were almost out of wax so they must have been lit a while ago. Frederic Chopin's Prelude No. 4 plays ever so softly in the back-round. Growing up it had been one of her favorite pieces to play, she had even memorized it. It started with a slightly eerie way about it; it had reminded her of the way she had always felt growing up as a single child, sad and lonely. She yanked the picture and dagger violently from the wall and ran from the house, back into Diggs Bentley. She turns it on and drives quickly away.

* * *

Felicity arrives at the casino eager to find her mother. She had changed from her old clothes into the gold dress and heels in the car she had already re applied her makeup and bright lipstick. She looked the part for a casino goer. She nervously walked up to the grand opening. It was the only casino she had ever been into. And she only went in because she worked there for a while as a performer, playing piano not striping or anything gross, or to pull her mother out. She walked in and was hit with a rush of memories, her first performance, her mother's first OD, and the day she lost her virginity. That hadn't been that bad, it was with her first long time (long time being a little over a month) relationship. They had been in the back room kissing when one thing leads to another... She had broken up with him a few months later because she said she "Wasn't feeling it anymore" really it had been because a girlfriend said he was cheating on her with another employee.

She went straight to the counter where you purchased poker chips. She knew the man who had been running it for years. He used to baby sit her. "Benjamin!" she called pushing her way to the front of the line mumbling 'I'm sorry' all the way to the front. "Benjamin, Hi!" She made it.

"Why hello there young lady, but you have to go the back of the line like everyone else." He said calmly.

"No, Ben it's me! It's me Felicity, Felicity Smoak!" She was desperate. She wanted to leave with her mother. She wanted to be back with Oliver and Diggle safe under their protection.

"Why! Felicity Megan Smoak!" You have grown to up to be a beautiful woman!" Ben turned his head. "Hey Carl? Would you mind taking over for me Felicity, Debbie's daughter is back."

"Felicity!" Carl pushed his way to the front of the booth, "Felicity hey! You look hot!" His eyes lingered over her body and she shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, I can handle it tonight. You can go Ben."

Benjamin quickly trotted into a back room and came around the Employee Only door to embrace Felicity in a tight hug. Ben was an older man, who looked a lot like John Wayne. Growing up he used to be like a father or grandfather to Felicity. "Bye Carl." She waves at him and walks away with Ben.

"You know a lot of people around here have several bets going about you." Ben began to walk with Felicity.

"Naturally…" She sighed.

"Bets about whether or not you're married, if you have kids, even if you're alive." He finished. They strolled along the slot machines watching the elderly waste away their pocket change and pensions.

"Alive?" She asks

"Yeah Felicity, Two years ago in Starling there was a massive earthquake ruining half the glades. You never contacted us so we had no way of knowing whether or not you were alive. 503 people died, and a few went unlisted. Your mother refused to talk to anyone or reach out to you. She said you chose to abandon her just like your father had and she hoped you died." Felicity bit back tears and took a deep breath. "Then last year there was that attack on the city where some religious group attacked and killed a lot of people again. More bets went up. The news you're alive and here, because you 'failed' as your mother so delicately puts it, is going to spread like wild fire."

They stopped in the center of the casino and looked around; a few of the workers were staring at them. And if she looked even closer a more than a few where exchanging money. "That's the thing Ben…" She looked into the older man's eyes. "I'm not here because I failed. I'm here because my father did." Ben took a step back.

"What are you talking about?" he inquired. His face gave away nothing but she had been around stubborn men long enough to know he was worried.

"My father left us and moved to Central City. He is in a gang and is a very dangerous man. A few days ago I was coming home when someone tried to kill me. He said he worked for a competing gang and that they were taking revenge on my father. I'm worried mom might be next." She finished her nervously prepared speech. It was very impromptu; she has the outline in her head on her way over and was scared out of her mind so everything was choppy and poorly done. And nothing Felicity ever does is poorly done.

"You mothers in the back." He hesitated. "With a… um… client…" Felicity closed her eyes and hurried off to the back of the casino to find her mother. Barging into all of the privet rooms until she interrupts her mother getting groped by a stranger.

"Hands off my mother please," She says yanking the guy off and pushing him out the door. She turned to face her mother. Who was so drunk she wasn't even sure she was completely lucid. But then she speaks.

"Do you know how to use a phone?" She slurs out.

"Yes mom." Felicity says softly she knew where this was going.

"THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME!" She yells at her daughter jumping up and tackling Felicity. She slaps Felicity in the face over and over again, until she grabs her mother's wrists. "I THOUGH YOU WHERE DEAD!" she cried out trying to shake Felicity's hands free. Felicity forces her into a hug. Wrapping her mother up in her arms the way Oliver did for her when she was freaking out over the dead and disassembled body in the IT department of Queen consolidated.

"Shhhhh, it's okay mom, I'm here. I'm alive. I'm okay." Her mother eventually quits trying to get free, she was too drunk to fight so instead she just wraps around her daughter's body hugging her back Felicity didn't want to scare her mother so she says quietly. "I have a car waiting outside to take us home. Let's go home, mom." She begins to carry/ drag her mother to the car with Ben's help. They shut the door of the car, her mother safely on the other side.

"Before you go I have to know," he gave her a sly grin and held up piece of paper. "Married? Kids? Successful? Still playing the piano? Abortion? Happy?" Felicity laughed, which was refreshing. She hadn't laughed since Roy spared with her in the foundry. She knew what he wanted to know. No she wasn't married, no she doesn't have any kids, technically she is Oliver Queens EA, she supervises the IT Department, AND she saves people's lives at night working with the vigilante so yes she would consider herself successful, She wasn't playing the piano as often but she had an electronic keyboard in her room so yes, No she had never had an abortion and was slightly confused why that was a question. Happy, was she happy? It seemed like such an abstract idea. She had Oliver and Diggle and Roy. Detective Lance was also there for her. She was surrounded by the people she loved and they loved her back.

"No, no, yes, technically, no, yes." She answered and he smiled,

Once more he wrapped her up in his arms and whispered in her ear "I love you, and I'm glad you're happy. That's all I ever wanted for you, but when this all blows over, and you're safe. Please call me." He withdrew his hold on her and gave her a shove towards the car. "GO! Get somewhere safe." She loaded herself into the car and drove back to the hotel.

* * *

Carrying her mother to the hotel was no small feat. She entered the lobby and the two guys she had knocked out earlier where waiting for her with the hotel security. "Miss, if you please, we need to ask you a few questions." Her mother was draped over her shoulder and she had had just about enough of people for one day. She spun on her heels and delicately set her mother on a chair that was next to the wall.

"No you listen up." She was using her loud voice, her very intimidating loud voice. The one she normally reserved for when Roy was misbehaving or Oliver was being stupid. "I just went to the dirtiest casino in town and dragged my mother out of a private room where she was being felt up by some looney and I dragged her all the way here. Those two had alcohol levels over the legal limit not doubt from your bar and tried to hurt me. You're lucky I'm not suing this establishment for every penny it has. And you two," She spun to face her attackers "You're lucky I'm not pressing charges! If anyone questions my actions one more time I will make sure all of you have every penny drained from your bank account by the end of the night, got me!" They all nodded, "Good, now scoot!"

She heaved her mother back on her shoulder and walked over to the elevator. It opened with again, another ding. Inside was the couple from earlier. Great… She awkwardly loaded in next to them. "It's my mother." She explained a bit timidly. "She's a bit of a drinker." They reached their floor and hurried out. The elevator carried Felicity and he mother to her floor where she unload and wobbled unsteadily to their hotel door. She wrapped on the door and it quickly swung open, reviling a very worried Oliver Queen.

**A/N: okay so lots of page breaks yeah I know. but still. i told you I would update soon. I would like to thank Lightning for the mom and daughter dialogues. annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd... i wanted to ask you to please review. it makes me very happy! Happy me = more story= faster updates... sooo. you know, review. **


	7. Explain It To Me Slowly

**A/N: So yes, I know it's been a million years since I have last updated, and for that I am truly sorry. I have been vacationing and I am still technically on vacation I was in Florida for what felt like forever. OMG Panama City was amazing. I am currently in New Orleans right outside the French Quarter. It is amazing and beautiful and everything right. The people here are kind and friendly where I'm from it's a miracle if someone even smiles. Let alone smiles at you and says hello. Wow and the self-expression is just mind blowing I saw a man riding an old fashion bike holding a cane wearing a skull mask. I wanted to shout "You go Glen Co-co!" But I didn't. OH I got a speeding ticket for the first time. And I took a selfie with the officer holding my ticket. I'm pretty sure he has the lowest opinion of me but I don't even care anymore. Anyways back to the point….. Which was…? Ummmm… oh yeah I'm on vacation for the summer with friends and hopefully updates won't slow down. But they might. Any whose have a great day, er night or whatever time you are reading this. **

Chapter 7: Explain It to Me Slowly

Digg rushed to Felicity's aid and unburdened the woman from her arms, her mother he supposed. She was a thin, strawberry blond woman not much taller than Felicity. The fact that her mother's hair was red made him wonder what colour Felicity's hair actually was. He knew she dyed it but always assumed it was brown because of the brown streaks. For all he knew Felicity was actually a ginger, this made sense of her fare skin. Digg carried the woman who was now passed out to the couch and laid her down.

Oliver was still standing there looking at his blond IT girl. Her gold dress clung to every curve and she looked beautiful, after his eyes wondered over her he noticed the faint outline of bruising on her arms from Roy were now darkened, and an extra pair of finger prints wrapped around her pale arms. His eyes went further down her arm to see cut and slightly bloodied knuckles that had the appearance of red glass in them, strange. His eyes went up to her face to see the beginnings of a bruise in her hair line. Before he could think twice he wrapped his arms around her small body and pulled her inside the room. The door slammed shut and he hadn't let go of her yet, still holding her, safe in his warm embrace. Felicity honestly didn't mind, she had been so scared all she wanted was to be reunited with her dear friends.

As quick as it had happened, it ended, "What the hell were you thinking?" He mumbled pulling her towards the kitchen so he could begin cleaning her hand. He didn't want to reprimand her now. He just needed to fix her wounds and remind himself that she was safe. She didn't argue, and it worried him. He had always wished she would stop being stubborn and see things his way. And now that she was, he wasn't sure he liked it. They needed to solve this problem. HE needed to solve this problem, because he wanted his Felicity back. Not that her being relatively submissive had in any way compromised his feelings towards her. He still needed to talk to her, but seeing her so sad and vulnerable gave him the feeling this was not the right time.

Oliver settled her down on the bar stool next to the kitchen. He carried the supplies over, and began dressing her wounds. "What happened?" He asked being careful to keep his voice quiet, so it was just He and Felicity. Diggle had gone to retrieve blankets from Felicity's room for her mother passed out on the couch. He situated himself on the stool across from her and took her hand carefully pulling chards of glass from the wound with a pair of tweezers.

"Don't get too comfy." She said her voice soft and fragile she sounded like she was ready to burst into tears.

"Why's that?" He interrogated, he already knew that he shouldn't get comfortable staying in Vegas. Tomorrow he had planned to head back to Starling or if Felicity found anything, to Central City. But he needed to know why Felicity had said that.

She shakily removed her hand from his and opened the black, leather bag she had in a death grip in her other hand. Slowly she pulled out an old dagger with a black handle. After that she pulled out a grainy, black and white picture of the woman on the couch walking (well more like crawling) out of a casino with another man. The picture had obviously been torn. Most likely from the dagger that now sat on the table in front of him. "I'm so sorry." He tried to console her but she just shook her head and looked down.

Diggle walked into the room face full of worry. "Felicity Smoak, don't you ever pull a stunt like that again!" He pulled her into a tight hug and she responded by hugging him back equally as tight. "What would we have done if you had gotten hurt? You would have never been able to give me my car back." Diggle chastised her. She was grateful for the break in tension.

"I'm sorry about everything." She whispered after he let go of her. "I'm sorry I left without telling you. I didn't want you to see her before I cleaned her up. She's always been a mess; I just didn't know how bad she would be without someone to take care of her, apparently, very bad." She looked through the doorway to see her mother asleep on the couch. "My mother has spent her entire life trying to be Betty Crocker, only to become Betty Ford."

Oliver put a hand on her shoulder. "Why don't you go to bed, we will continue this conversation later. You must be tired," he paused as she nodded her head and began to stand up. Oliver had finished wrapping up her hand. "We will talk about this," he lightly traces the bruise on her hair line "Later, got me?"

She gave him a weak smile, "Got you." She echoed, with that she turned around and walked into her room.

"Someone is going to get the crap beaten out of them, aren't they?" Diggle asked. Digg has noticed how Oliver's jaw tightened when they saw how battered Felicity was in the door way. Someone had dared laid a hand on her and Oliver, or the Arrow, was going to make them pay. "How do you think it happened? The glass in her hand that is." Digg was trying to get Oliver to think about something other than murder.

"I can think of hundreds of ways she could end up with those wounds. And none of them are good." Oliver answered gruffly. His jaw felt like it was about to break due to the copious amount of pressure he was applying to it. He stood up and went to the living room with Digg. They watched her mother sleep. She was pretty like Felicity but was much older, her arms and hands were thin and brittle her veins stuck out like a sore thumb. Her skin was pale like Felicity's but unhealthy and pasty, and her finger tips were the colour of nicotine. She looked so Ill and they both didn't know what to make of it. They could smell the smoke from her clothes from across the room. They watched her for a while until they heard a voice behind them.

"I know," they both hear the light voice of Felicity and they turn to look at her. "I'm surprised her aura doesn't set off a smoke alarm." Felicity has showered and changed into her pajamas. The same ones she wore in the lair. "Betty ford…." She mumbled Digg nodded but said nothing. Felicity had spent a lot of time with Digg a few years back when Oliver left after the undertaking. They had a lot of bonding time and Felicity had explained to him her mother in all her complex nature. This was the first time Digg had met Mrs. Debbie Smoak, but he knew enough from Felicity to expect something bad, but Oliver didn't need to know that.

"I'll take the first watch," Digg says going to sit in a chair by the window. "Why don't you two get some rest, or talk, or whatever you need to do." Digg was trying to hint at Oliver to talk to Felicity about his feelings but Oliver didn't catch it.

"Alright," Oliver agreed. "We will talk about our plans in the morning," He rested a hand on Felicity's shoulder "Goodnight." Felicity and Oliver went to their different rooms and Digg just shook his head no in amusement. Oliver had been blind for so long towards his feeling for Felicity and now he was a coward. Perfect.

* * *

Now was not the time to be pouring his confusing thoughts and the muddled contents of his heart out to a struggling and hurt Felicity. He was in love with her, but clearly he didn't know her as well as he thought. After Oliver fails at sleep for the umpteenth time since meeting Felicity, to busy thinking about the way her hair falls on her shoulders like a golden waterfall, and the way her pale skin is soft under his calloused thumb, or the way her ruby lips beg him to kiss them. He gets out of bed and walks to the living room to sit with Digg. Digg doesn't have to say anything to Oliver, he already knew what he had to say and repeating it would be pointless. They sit in silence both staring at the woman asleep on the couch "Debbie." Digg says.

"What?" Oliver shifts in his chair to have a better angle to look at Digg. He had been caught off guard by Diggs random interjection.

"Debbie Smoak." Digg finishes "Debbie Eleanor Smoak. That's her full name."

"And why would you know that?" Oliver questions careful not to sound jealous or unkind, just curious.

Digg was staring at the drooling older woman, "When you left for the Island Two years back Felicity and I spent a lot of time together rebuilding the foundry and she told me. I'm not entirely sure she meant to, but a few times a story slipped out about her mom. I don't know much, except that she said growing up with her felt more like roommates than family. And she has a tendency to say racist and innaproprate things like Felicity only she doesn't take them back or blush. Apparently her bluntness is not because of a missing filter; she has one and chooses not to use it. Gotta' say I'm not really looking forward to that." Digg looks back at Oliver to find him deep in thought. "I know we have already hashed this out, but I gave you an opportunity to talk to her tonight."

"I know," Oliver sighed

"So why didn't you?" He knew asking such a thing was a little personal and he had already pushed the boy out of his comfort zone earlier today, but the curiosity was killing him.

"It wasn't right. Not with her hurt and her mother here, and not knowing if she was dead or alive. I was so worried. I didn't even know her mother's name, Digg. There's so much I don't know about her apparently and I want to find out." The billionaire ran his hands over his face and through his hair thinking about how relived he felt when he swung open the door to see his beautiful, and fragile Felicity standing there with some strange woman.

"Oliver, there are some things you learn with a person, not away from them. I didn't learn about her mother being distant I learned being with her. By sharing my past with her, bonding, and being close. I suggest you do the same." He pointed at Felicity's door, lights flicker on under the door and someone shuffles around the room. "Go." Digg ordered.

Oliver slowly stood up; it was the first time John had ever seen him so unsure of himself. Oliver made it to the door when a tornado of blond curls whips the door open and crash into Oliver. Felicity loses her balance and begins to fall. Oliver's hands instinctively snake around her waist and catch her, pulling her up to his chest. "Ahh!" She shrieks when runs into him. Pulling her closer he puts a hand over her mouth and whispers "shhhhh" he nods his head towards her mother's sleeping form on the couch. With one hand clutching her tablet she inches the other one up an wraps it around his fingers slowly pulling them down, once she pulls them down as far as her neck he slides it around her neck so one hand rested on the small of her back, and the other on the back of her neck. One of her hands was clutching her tablet to her chest and the other spread out over his heart. She could feel the steady beats of his heart slowly speed up and her chest began to rise and fall faster.

"Ahhheem" Digg cleared his throat and Felicity jumped back

"Right um sorry," Felicity squeaked out Oliver made a motion towards the sleeping woman, trying to get her to quiet down. "Oh no, don't worry she won't wake up, the woman sleeps like a bolder." She walked over towards Digg and began speaking, "So I know you said to go to sleep and I tried but I can't so I started a search and a few moments ago I got a hit." She looked a mix of excited and worried.

"A hit on who, Felicity?" Digg asks standing up "On Carmichael, or Fat Chuck?"

Felicity tilted her head. "You mean whom, 'a hit on whom' and neither, I have a lead on my dad."

* * *

Felicity debriefed them on her findings and they decided since it was her father's fault she was in such a precarious situation to begin with finding out what he did to anger them would be a good place to start. It was roughly six in the morning now so they decided to get an early start, that way they could drop Debbie off in starling to be taken to a safe house. From there they would go to central city, where she found her father. After everyone was packed up she went to the living room to wake her mother. Digg and Oliver were in the kitchen, she had expressed how not happy she was with her mother coming with. "Can't we just lock her in a basement or something?" she had asked. Naturally they didn't think she was serious, but she sure was. She didn't want them to watch her communicate with her mother. It was the most cynical exchange always.

Felicity walks over to her mother, "MOM, wake up." And just like always her mother didn't budge. Felicity looks at the pillow on the floor, picks it up, and begins to hit her with it. "MOM, wake up! You passed out again." Debbie mom begins to stir from her apparently fitful night of slumber. "Congratulations you survived the night."

Her mother sits up and leans forward. "If you were even a remotely good daughter you'd let me sleep." Her mother growls at her.

"If I were a good daughter I'd put you to sleep." Felicity walks over to the kitchen, her bare feet padding against the carpet, and pours a cup of water. Just like she used to do for so many years when she was younger, her mother scrambles for her purse and pulls out a flask and a pill bottle. "Are you sure you're supposed to be drinking with the pills Doctor Dealers giving you?" She asks swiping her flask and replacing it with the cup of water.

Her mom moans but accepts it. "It's Doctor Wheeler. And why don't you just leave it to the professionals." She takes a swig of water and downs the pills. "You know you made me wish I'd had that abortion in the 80's."

Felicity pulls her mother to her feet and basically drags her to the kitchen. Digg was holding her bag for her. "That makes two of us." She mumbled pushing her out the door towards the elevator

* * *

Once they were all crammed into the small elevator Debbie finally took notice of the two men around her. "Wow, aren't you two hunky monkeys. I want to sink my teeth into that chocolate bum!"

"MOM!" Felicity chocked out as her mother patted Diggs back side. Digg goes from relaxed to tense in seconds "Hands off! That's a huge no-no!" Oliver was trying to hide his laughter at his friend's discomfort, seeing it as payback for forcing him to dish his feelings out earlier that morning. And also at Felicity, she had only used the phrase 'No-no' when Oliver did something really idiotic. Like go into a gun fight without his bow and her sitting helplessly at the lair.

"So, are you two mine or was Lissy keeping you comfortable last night?" She said with a raised eyebrow.

"Mom, stop! This is my boss Oliver Queen and his body guard John Diggle. We are also very good friends and they offered to come down here with me to get you." Felicity's cheeks were bright pink and the blush was spreading to her chest. They had alreaqdy explained the situation to her mother, whether or not she was listening or drinking was up to her.

"Oh, Mr. Oliver Queen…" Debbie looked at him and tilted her head. "Those tabloid pictures don't do you justice, you are sexier in person. Wouldn't I love to lick your-"

"DEBORAH ELANORE SMOAK, STOP!" Felicity finally snapped. Her cheeks were as red as cherries.

"Oh don't pretend you're better than me, at least when I sleep with people for money I'm honest about it. But, I know you! Remember who raised you." Debbie hisses at her mother "Speaking of who raised you, show a little respect for your mother, you didn't even have the decency to call me after the quake or those attacks on your city!" Her mother had tears in her eyes and Oliver and Diggle both looked at Felicity

'I told you, a basement would have been a good idea.' Felicity said in one of their silent conversations.

'I didn't know you were serious… should have listened, she touched my butt. You better never do that.' Diggs eyes widened as the woman breaking down at the lift

'Don't worry, I am NOT my mother.'

'Are those tears for real? Why didn't you call her?' Oliver shifted to be closer to Felicity just in case that woman was as unstable as she looked.

'Seriously why-' Felicity was interrupted by her mother's next outburst.

"And now you are ignoring me! You little bitch!" Debbie lunged at Felicity just like at the casino, Thank god it was a nice hotel with a large elevator. As Debbie lunged forward, Oliver protectively wrapped Felicity in his arms pulling her away from her mother and Digg grabbed Debbie and pulled her to the other side of the lift. "I'm going to shank you in your sleep!" She screamed.

The team was so distracted they didn't hear the ding as the elevator stopped early opening for… Oh dear god, the couple from last night, every one stopped and looked at the couple standing shocked at the mouth of the lift. "Hey, come on in. There's plenty of space. Don't be shy." Debbie said bitterly. Digg had let go of her and she just looked angry. Oliver had been standing partly in front of Felicity and he had now moved to stand next to her, but her hand never left his forearm. Oliver welcomed the warmth her touch provided.

The couple awkwardly shuffled on and stood in between the two groups. Great, Felicity thought My life is like a comedic murder mystery. Three elevator rides in a row they had run into these people "Karmas a bitch, and then you die." Felicity mumbled, Oliver gave her a confused glance. "Bob's Burgers?" she asked and he shook his head no in response. "Don't fret it's a waste of brain space, funny, but a waste of space." Oliver wasn't going to say anything but Felicity quoting TV shows, movies, and books always made him feel better. They were always funny, or sassy, and so very Felicity.

The ride was too long maybe next time they shouldn't rent a room on the top floor. She would rather share a small lousy room than this long awkward ride down any day. Once they finally reached the floor the couple darted out and practically sprinted out the doors. "Well that went well," Digg mumbled.

"Don't think this is over you skank." Debbie grumbled and marched away to sit in a corner. Her strawberry blond hair was flat against her head from the oils, and her little black dress tight and reviling. She plopped down in a chair in a most un-lady like manner.

"I'm sorry…" Felicity struggled to bit out the words.

"Hey don't worry, It's okay Felicity don't cry." Oliver cupped Felicity's face and he wiped his thumbs under her eyes waiting for tears to fall. No one could go through that with your own mother and not cry, except, apparently, Felicity.

She gently removed his hands. "No, I'm not going to cry. There's nothing she can say to me she hasn't already. I'm an iron wall as far as she's concerned. I was just apologizing for her behavior. She can be a bit crass. On top of that she looks awful. I don't even think she remembers how to take a proper shower. God she looks awful, she smells awful… I'm sorry."

Oliver furrows his brows and rubs his hands down her arms. "It's okay Felicity, everything will be okay. I have called Detective Lance and he is setting up a safe house in starling. You just need to add her to your program thingy and hide from Carmichael with her. Everything will be okay."

Felicity was taken aback. "No." She said stepping closer to him making her voice firm. She was not going to hide.

"What?" He said standing straighter so he was standing over her hopping his size would intimidate her. He should have known it wouldn't work. She just took a step closer so they were chest to chest and nose to nose. Her red, three inch heels making her almost at his eye level and her red scoop neck, three quarter inch sleeve shirt was tight and exposed the tops of her breasts. Her blouse was tucked into a short navy blue pencil skirt, on her ears hung gold and navy blue triangle earrings. "I said no." Her voice was quiet and her breath danced across his skin. He looked at her bright, plump red lips. He wanted to kiss her, hard, and bring her right back up stairs and make her scream in pleasure. He hated it when Felicity defied him, but at the same time it was so sexy the way she got so close and dared him back down. "I'm not going to hide in a safe house with my mother. I'm going with you and Digg. And I'm going to solve this with you." She was staring right in his eyes taunting him. He wanted to feel her lips with his. He wanted to touch with his hands the parts of her legs he couldn't see with his eyes. Digg had gone to pull up the car and Debbie had disappeared into the casino attached to the hotel so it was just them. Alone. Together. Only they were in a lobby, and he was pretty sure they didn't want Oliver Queen to push his EA against the wall and kiss her senseless for the whole world to see, potentially destroying the art on the walls. That was going to have to wait until they were in a different setting. Maybe back home.

There was no use in fighting so he looked away and took a step back. "Fine, but you have to be with either Digg or I the whole time." He gave her a stern glance. She was already returning to her happy bubbly self. Good. That's the Felicity he knows and loves. Loves… he will have to ponder on that later. He knew he loved her, and he knew he was in love with her, but thinking it or saying felt strange and mystifying.

"me or Digg," She corrected him with a look mirth painted across her face. "And deal." Digg pulls the Bentley up to the doors, and Felicity turns to face the entrance of the hotel casino to find where her mother had disappeared to.

"Where would your mother most likely be?" Oliver questions. Without warning Felicity shoves her hand into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Son of a…

She opened his wallet and where a one-hundred dollar bill typically had set up camp, it was now empty. She tossed it back to him and started weaving in and out of people not waiting for him "The poker table."

**A/N: I hope you like this chapter. I wrote the outline for it, and originally Oliver and Felicity were going to have their first kiss and I was all Nope imma be mean to you and only talk about them doing it. He, he, he and I did it twice. If ya review I wouldn't complain. In fact quite the opposite I would thank you. OHHH also please check out and review my other Fanfiction. I just decided to turn it into a collection of one-shots about Digg Felicity and Roy and the day they met the Arrow. If you can think of one other person for me to write about please tell me. **


	8. I Dare You

**A/N: So yes, I know this is an uneventful chapter but I just got home from vacationing. Some places less fun than others. I've been home for a week and I found out a have a new roommate. PLOT TWIST! My roommate is a mouse. It's like the shittiest roommate ever. He craps on my spoons and eats the corners of my Doritos and rapes my old lady beanie babies. Not to mention he's eating the lace off the tops of my bras. WTF type of mouse does that? I think he's on coke, but I can't prove it. His name is him Carl. So at least he isn't a stranger. It would be disturbing if it was a stranger mouse doing it. But I feel less violated giving him a name… anyways. Story.**

Chapter 8: I Dare You

After several failed attempts at peacefully removing Debbie from the poker table Felicity deciding bribing was her best option. So she bought vodka on the rocks and held it under her nose until she got her in the back of the car. The second her mother was in she quickly closed the door. "This is just like my seventh grade field trip all over again…" Felicity laments.

Digg sighs once her mother is finally happy and calm sipping intoxicating beverages in the back seat "How long has your mother been…"

"Crazy?" Felicity interrupts

"Like this?" Digg finishes, not willing to call his dearest friend and practically family's mother crazy.

Felicity combs her fingers through her hair, only to have her blond locks tumble back into its place, nicely framing the side of her face, a wave perfectly sweeping over her forehead to cover the slight bruising. "Since forever, well, forever being since my dad left, and that's basically the same thing. Any ways we should get this show on the road, not that I'm looking forward to four hours in a small space with that woman; she tends to jump around like a crack-filled ferret. You don't need to know that, she shouldn't be a problem I slipped an Ambien into her drink."

"You drugged your mother?" Oliver asked. He hated seeing her so vulnerable, She clearly didn't like talking about her mother and had no obvious intentions of ever telling them about her. The fact that she called her Woman or Debbie more times than she called her mom or mother did not escape his notice either, he was dying to ask what she did for a living because she made herself sound like a prostitute. That concerned him even more opening a flood gate of unanswered questions. Did she ever hurt you? Did she ever try to sell you? Are you okay? Do you want to rent a car for the ride back? All these questions would never reach the light of day because he was afraid to push her; he knew she would talk about it when she was ready. So, he went with a less personally invasive question. "Where did you get Ambien?"

Felicity flashed a taunting smile. It was full mirth and ambiguity. "Wouldn't you like to know?" She says playfully. 'God she really has no idea how much her words affect me.' He thinks to himself, with a small uptick of his lips he decides to let it go.

Oliver and Diggle decide to keep to the safety of the front seat to avoid getting another 'Debbie Treatment' which is what Felicity calls being felt up by a crazy woman in her forties. Debbie was currently breathing heavily on the glass and drawing smiley faces, to drunk and drugged to care what was going on "So if your mom is in her forties and you're twenty-five, then how old was she when she met your dad?" Oliver asks trying to do the mental math.

"Oliver, please you are going to hurt yourself thinking so much. My mom and dad where married out of high school. She was eighteen when I was born which according to her ruined her life." She finished bitterly looking at her mother.

"You're damn right it did. It's your fault I'm not a model or an actress." Debbie slurs out her words obviously having a hard time trying to stay awake.

Felicity lets a dry and humorless laugh spill from her normally bright and positive lips. "No mom, you aren't a model and an actress because the only talent you have is stripping."

"See!" Her mother calls out! "I would be a great model. I meet all the requirements. Pretty and willing to show off." She concludes. Without a moment's pause she continues her nonsensical sentences and off-based ideas. "You should be on ant- depressants." She says patting her daughters face. Felicity is less than thrilled with her mother's opinion but knows she has to answer. She learned at an early age ignoring her mother was a very bad idea. While her mother never seriously damaged Felicity that didn't stop her from back handing her and locking up the fridge and cupboards so she couldn't eat.

"NO. No way. You're medicated enough for the both of us." She concludes. As long as she answers her mother doesn't get mad. Aside from being a bipolar hooker she was mostly happy with just conversing with people. Felicity always thought if her father hadn't left then maybe her mother would have finished her schooling and acquired a degree in communication. She was terrible with mass communication, stumbling over lines and sweating. But her interpersonal skills where quite good, It was one of the reasons she was the most preferred girl at the club. She could be drunk and drugged and still hold a conversation. No matter how flimsy it was, it was still a conversation.

"Aren't you depressed? Because you always look worried and sad, it isn't a good look on you." Her mother surmises. Clearly the woman has never had a conversation with herself. Felicity though cynically.

Felicity looked at her mother completely ignoring the fact that Digg and Oliver are listening, moist likely gauging their weird relationship. "Currently, While having this conversation? Yeah." She looks out the window watching the city slowly dissipate. The tall buildings are shorter and the once jam packed city now further apart. "Everyone gets depressed it an emotion. People turn to pills before they turn to their problems these days." Felicity turns back just in time to see her mother's genuine response.

Debbie leans towards her daughter and says in a very sincere voice "Because sometimes it's the only solution." It was like she actually believed that. Felicity was unimpressed by her mother's comment and let loose a sarcasm shower.

"You're depressing me right now, are you saying I'm going to take a pill and you're going to disappear?"

Her mother punches her on her upper arm causing her to wince after all she now had two sets of bruises there. She can see Oliver set his jaw at the action, but he doesn't say anything. "That was uncalled for!" Debbie whines with conviction.

"And so are most prescription drugs. We are living in a medicated society. We start drugging kids with A.D.D, which they ALL have, and it doesn't stop till death." Felicity rubs her arm and scoots closer to the window. She always hated pills. She had grown up watching her mother drown in them. Twelve different times she remembered having to drag her mother into the bath tub and induce vomiting because of an over dose. They were some of the worst twelve days of her life. Three times her mother had actually gone into a short coma. Once she went to rehab, and a middle home. She finished neither but to Felicity it was the fact she tried.

"You were on A.D.D medication as a kid. And you turned out somewhat decent." Her mother smirked at her astonishment. Not only was she just told she was drugged she just received a complement from her mother for the first time in eighteen years.

"No I wasn't!" she shrieked horrified.

"I hid it in your food" her mom laughed. She was enjoying Felicity's discomfort. She enjoyed destroying her foundation of opinions.

What! No! She shifted her weight, this wasn't happening. "I thought I was just really docile and mature for my age." She stuttered out still in some form of shock.

"Nope you were drugged. When your… when he," She corrects herself clearly still nursing a grudge against the man that left them, "and I started getting a divorce we found out it was easier to roofie you than to answer your questions." Her mother sighed and leaned against the window admitting defeat letting the drugs take her away into oblivion.

"Welp," Felicity says popping the 'p'. "It isn't a heartfelt moment with my mother unless some form of my childhood foundation is shattered."

The drive back to starling felt shorter than the drive up. Once they reached Starling however things got complicated Digg and Oliver had to stay in the lair as Felicity drove to the Precinct with her mother. It was all too suspicious for Oliver Queen to go out of town to find his secretary's mother and drive her back to Starling. And it had to look like Digg had lent her the car because her car was totaled so after she left the car at the precinct Digg was supposed to go pick it up.

* * *

"Felicity, you all right?" Detective Lance asks worriedly. He quickly escorts her into the building, another officer taking Debbie. "I was worried sick after our, mutual, friend called asking me to remove what I can only assume was your car."

Felicity blushed as she heard her mother erupt in laughter as a police man screeches out in surprise, clearly getting the Debbie Treatment. "Well yeah that was my car; I really need to get a new one though I can't really afford to do that right now. Speaking of right now I'm not staying with my mother in the safe house." She braces for the inevitable lecture telling her she's making a mistake and she needs to be out of harm's way. What she didn't expect to hear was:

"Okay, where do you want me to take you?" Detective Lance asks grabbing the keys to his squad car.

"Wait, what?" Felicity was stunned there was no way she was this lucky. She strolls into the parking-lot with the detective. The sun was high in the sky by this point, and not a cloud in sight. "You aren't going to reprimand me about making bad dissections?"

Lance offers her a small smile, "You are no idiot Felicity, and I'm guessing you want me to take you somewhere to meet up with the Arrow. I'm willing to bet you know more about this than we do." They make it to the squad car and he leans against the hood. "Would I be right?"

"Aren't you always?" She teases, glad he trusts Oliver so much. Yes, he may not know that the Arrow is, in fact, Oliver Queen but the sentiments there all the same. "He said to meet him in an abandoned warehouse in the glades, on Oakland Street." She waited for Lance to respond before continuing.

"So you have already started looking into it?" He states as if she just confirmed every suspicion he has ever had.

"Um, yeah it's kind of a personal Smoak-family-dram-type thing. Trust me when I say that the SCPD doesn't want to be involved. I just can't exactly take my mother to the Arrow and say 'Hey so you know how you already have to protect me? Now you have to protect her too! Oh and bonus she is really handsy if you aren't careful!' I don't think he would say no, but I would never ask so much of him. He is a good man, probably too good." She and Lance both load into the squad vehicle to start their journey.

"You think very highly of him, you know he doesn't deserve you, right?" Lance was always a no nonsense type of guy when it came to the Arrow. "Speaking of which, it was awfully nice of John Diggle to lend you his car so you could get your mother. But I can't say I'm glad about that. He should have gone with you, or you should have just called the police-"

"Detective Lance!" Felicity interrupts him nicely before he can decide he hates Digg. "I was perfectly safe the whole time. John knows I can protect myself for the most part. Besides, I have erased every digital copy of me ever being there from the hotel security to the traffic cameras, I currently have the program running erasing me from the security footage of me and my mother from the precinct." She smiles as they pull into the abandoned warehouse, a hooded figure waits in the shadows at the other end with a motorcycle.

"I'm going to ignore that confession of computer fraud, and hacking crimes and pretend you just told me a mildly funny joke." Lance laughs.

"That's right Lance, You nothzing, nothzing." She says in a terrible German accent.

"While I appreciate you going back into the sixties to quote Hogan's Heroes, don't you have someplace to be going, and a problem to be solving?" He motions out the window to the Arrow, he realized this was the first time the Arrow has ever come out during the day. "He must really care about you to risk being out in the open like this."

"We are good friends," She says getting out of the car. Quinton opens his door and steps halfway out of his vehicle,

"You take care of her you got me? I don't care how fast you are on your feet; even you can't outrun a bullet." Lance wasn't entirely serious but to some degree he was speaking truth. He saw Felicity kind of like a daughter. The last thing you want for your daughter is to have her exploded or chopped into pieces.

"If she dies, I wouldn't even try to run." The Arrow says deadly seriously, even though his voice was contorted by the modulator, you could hear the emotion behind the statement. Lance temporarily wondered if the young blond was aware of how she provoked strong protective instincts in all the men in her life. More than once he had witnessed Oliver, or his body guard being over protective whenever they were out at social events or business calls. He himself couldn't deny the urge he had to protect her from the world and all of its cruelness. She was a sweet soul; he had never witnessed her say anything mean and angry out of spite. Until, that is, he saw her with her mother. When he saw the calamity that was one Miss Debbie Smoak he wanted to pick her up and run as far away as possible from that woman. Lance satisfied with the Arrows response plops back into his squad car and drives away.

"Well that was fun, I have never ridden in the front of a squad car," She looks at Oliver who has a smirk behind his masked face "Not that I've ever ridden I the back on one either, I am an upstanding citizen and I would never break the law. Our nightly activities excluded. Not nightly, nightly we don't do it every night. And when I say do it I don't mean it. Not that I wouldn't want to I'm sure you are quite good, not that I've thought about it-,"

"Felicity," Oliver interrupts her sounding bit more annoyed than usual.

"And I'm shutting up in three, two, and one." Her cheeks are lightly dusted with pink but for the most part she still has her dignity. Oliver smiles and motions to his bike, He isn't wearing his Arrow outfit, but instead jeans and a black leather jacket. Where is hood typically places over his shoulders to cover his head is a motorcycle helmet. "It's nice to know that even super heroes are concerned with safety." Felicity laughs as knocks on his helmet taking the one he offers her. "I don't know if you know this but I don't actually know how to work these things." She motions to the helmet as she tries to desperately shove it on her head. I think my head might be three sizes too big for this."

Oliver steps closer to her to help her fix her helmet. "I am not a super hero." He positions the helmet over her head before pressing it down. He hadn't meant to sound so harsh, but due to his recent revelation, her ramblings were more painful than adorable. The second she corrected their nightly activities he was thinking less about the Arrow and more about what he could do with her in a bed.

"Wow! This thing is like a T.A.R.D.I.S, when do we get to time travel?" She asks, excitement filling her voice to the brim, even with the helmet over her head he could tell she was bubbling over the brim with happiness.

"I'm sorry?" Oliver was mystified with Felicity's quotes. He never had a chance to catch up on his pop culture and a Felicity had taken responsibility for his pop culture catch up. Sometimes asking random questions about TV shows or humming popular songs and reminding him who they are by and what they are from. She also tended to use a lot of TV quotes when talking. She rarely cussed but when she did it was always to quote some book or movie.

"Doctor Who." She sighs once she realizes not only does he not know it, he has never even heard of it before. "Doctor Who is a British science-fiction television program produced by the BBC. British Broadcasting Corporation." She helps clear the murky water that is Doctor Who. She had made quotes from it before but never explained it. And as much as it felt like a waste of time he would never tell her to stop her new obsession of teaching him things from the missing five years of his life because he had actually been able to use them with Thea. Once he told Thea a quote from the movie Up saying, "Scream all you want, Small Mailman." At the time Thea had been pestering him about Felicity, and wanting to talk 'Feelings' He refused and locked her out of his room. She was screeching trying to get him to open the door. When He finished the quote saying "None of your mailman friends can hear you." Thea burst the door open reviling she had a key to his room the whole time. She squealed and shrieked and was so excited that he had made a pop-culture reference. So he just decided they were worth it. Seeing his sister so happy was always worth it.

* * *

Oliver may have never finished collage and technically high school but he was street smart and that's what mattered. So he hadn't come in his Arrow suite. And he had chosen a warehouse close to Verdant so they could drive through back allies to escape being noticed. Oliver positioned himself on the motorcycle and nodded his head telling her to come on. She hadn't really dressed for the occasion given she was wearing a pencil skirt. Before climbing on the back, Felicity shimmies her skirt around her thighs until it came right above the hip. "What are you doing?" Oliver queries not very thrilled with the precarious position this was about to become.

"I didn't exactly dress for the occasion Oliver." She rests herself behind him her bare legs touching his, the only thing separating their lower body being his jeans.

Son of a…

**A/N: Eeeekkk! I cited fo mah next chapter! Dey goin to do some fo shizzal talkin! :D Only thing is that you are going to have to wait a while for the next chapter because I want it to be perfect. Plesh review! (My auto correct is having a spaz attack over this authors note… mwahahaha!)**


	9. A Friendly Sight

**A/N: All righty, my summer is officially started. My updates should even out. I'm trying to figure out my summer schedule. It's been a toughie but I haven't and will not forget about my fan fiction. I was going to make Oliver and Felicity talk feelings in this chapter but I wanted to have one more chapter making sure you understand the team dynamic. Obviously Malcom is still dead, and Thea didn't leave. Sooooo enjoy.**

Chapter 9: A Friendly Sight

Once they pulled into the foundry garage, another thing Felicity had installed for Oliver, they unloaded themselves from the bike and Felicity began to walk toward the door that leads directly into the foundry.

"Felicity," Oliver's deep melodic voice called her name. There was an emotion in his voice she couldn't explain and she paused to turn and see why he had stopped her.

"Oliver," She tilted her head to the right to show a slight confusion, whilst simultaneously matching his tone. She waited for the explanation for as to why he was stopping her.

"Felicity, we need to talk." He looked almost nervous. That can't be. Oliver Jones Queen doesn't do nervous. It was discomforting for Felicity to say the least. Nervous Oliver wasn't something she was used to. Confident Oliver: check. Angry Oliver: Check. Brooding, emotional, faux billionaire, or passionate Oliver: check, check, check, check but never nervous. It simply wasn't done.

So Felicity does what she does best. Avoids the confrontation, a skill she learned from years with her loving but crazy mother, "Does this talk have anything to do with finding my father or Carmichaels and figuring out why Fat Chuck wants me dead so I don't die? My list of things to do right now is pretty extensive and all kind of my top priorities. But if it's an Eight or higher I can reprioritize, stencil you in so to speak." It was a joke, she knew whatever was on Oliver's mind was important. But she also had a vague impression of what he wanted to talk about. If the heated looks they had been exchanging were any indication, but she wasn't sure she could handle another 'Because of the Life I Lead' speech. The first time she had heard it, it nearly broke her heart.

"You're right, you not dying, is very important. We should go inside." He gave a tight smile and walked past Felicity to enter the foundry.

"Oliver!" Felicity pipes up before he has a chance to open the door. "If you have something on your mind, you can tell me. You know that right? No matter what current psycho in our lives I am never too busy to talk. In fact I think I proven my skill for talking are unparalleled. But as much as I talk I can also listen, despite the common misconception, I'm not like the Rock of Gibralter, haranguing every single moment of my life. I can stop and auscultate." She finishes her disquisition by taking a long, deep breathe. "Wow, I totally forgot to breathe…"

His previously tight expression was replaced with one of his genuine smiles he typically uses for her or his family. "Rock or Gibralter?" He gives a bona fide laugh at her crazy vocabulary, "Haranguing? I'm pretty sure now you're just making up word to confuse me."

Felicity swats his arm playfully. "Just because you're phraseology" She says stressing her new word "is as developed as a plastic cup doesn't mean I'm going to dumb myself down so you can understand me. I put myself in some serious debt to know these things and to have the degree I have, and I will use them at my leisure. So you might as well get used to it! Because I plan on sticking around for a while, sparkling you with my extensive palaver. Who knows maybe my stupendous grammar and vocabulary skills will rub off on you, if not maybe osmosis will take effect. Besides as a very wise man once said, 'Always pass on what you have learned'." She gives him a sly smile as he holds open the door for her.

"And who was this 'wise man'?" Oliver smiles already knowing that she was about to quote another TV show, or book. He was avoiding the earlier conversation; it was stupid of him to even consider having that talk right now. He wasn't even sure what he would have said. She must have noticed his reluctance because she gave him a weary smile before continuing.

"For your information, Yoda said that, and don't tell me it doesn't count because he's not real; because the point still stands." Felicity huffs she walked into the foundry to a very welcoming sight. Thea was sitting at her desk on her extra chair they kept for when she chose to grace them with her presence.

In Felicity unprofessional but very wise opinion, telling Thea about the Arrow was one of the best choices Oliver had ever made. Not that it was much of a secret to the Queen family after Slade's rampage. Thea had left for a while not knowing how to process all the information. Felicity didn't even tell Oliver where she went claiming everyone is entitled to their own processing time.

"_I'll keep an eye on her. But she needs time and space to understand. You can't just truth bomb people and expect them to move on without pause. If anything changes I will tell you her location. Until then you don't need to know. I know for a fact she's safe. She needs time, and I honestly think you do too." _

Not telling him where his sister was had been one of the hardest things she had ever done. He had practically begged her for the information, but when that didn't work he tried to scare her by intimidation to tell him. But Felicity was an iron wall. She didn't even falter.

"_I will have you fired from Queen Consolidated and purposefully write to all future employers telling them you are insubordinate and stubborn worker! Just tell me where she is!" He yelled at her through gritted teeth. He took a step closer so he could tower over her. _

_In response she took a step closer daring him to so much as flinch under the pretenses of abuse. "Empty threats." She said casually looking him dead in the eye. No one had ever been able to use her height against her since she was young. _

After that failed, she caught him trying to use her computer programs to find her. Felicity had an IQ of 155 so she had already predicted he would try that and had put backup security protocols into place so he couldn't find her. And that had all happened in the course of one day. Eventually after three weeks of watching Oliver sulk and sneak she reached out to Thea to help her better understand, and hopefully accept everything that had happened.

"_I understand the science. I understand he wanted to keep me safe. I understand why he thought telling me would put me in danger. But the emotional part of me, which is most of me, is so angry he lied. He let me think he was the only one telling me the truth. After everything I went through with Malcom being my real father, with the Undertaking, with mom dying. All of those things happened because of lies. Those things could have been prevented with the truth." Thea fiddled with the coffee cup in her hands._

"_I know it's a lot to comprehend. I processed it all though a few pints of mint chip ice cream. But if anyone asks, it was only one pint." Felicity had always been good with heart to hearts. She was better with computers, but she could still get through. _

"_And why did he tell you? Why didn't he tell me? You were just his secretary! I am his sister! If anyone deserves to know you would have thought it would have been his immediate family. No offence." She quickly adds at the end. _

"_None taken, even if I am technically his Executive Assistant not secretary, Oliver told me before I was promoted," Felicity snorted at the word promoted. She may have moved up floors but it felt like a demotion. "I do the technology side of the Arrow. Like umm hacking, and whatnot. He promoted me so he wouldn't have to travel down eighteen floors every time he had to talk about his alter ego." _

"_That's great and all but why you?" Thea was clearly still struggling with everything._

"_Honestly I don't think he would have ever told me if he hadn't been shot by Mrs. Queen. He used to come down to the IT department with shady objects and bad excuses asking me for help. But that night he was losing blood and needed help. Since I already knew he was hiding something and hadn't called the police yet he came to me." _

"_OH MY GOD! MOM SHOT OLLIE?!" Oh dear, Felicity had assumed she would have put those pieces together already. _

"_IT's fine! He was fine! He IS fine!" She says making sure she stressing the word 'is' he is fine, now. "Oliver has gone through a lot. And keeping himself a secret to you was probably the hardest thing he has ever had to do. And I have watched him make some pretty impossible choices." She looks at the park that was surrounding them. They were sitting on a bench in a small gazebo overlooking the lake. It was a truly magnificent spot. The water was a myriad of greens and blues shining and shimmering under the bright midmorning sky. There were children playing across the water, elderly people feeding ducks, and young couples strolling along hand and hand on the dirt path that wound its way around the small body of water._

"_Like leaving mom's trial to save you?" Thea asked gingerly. _

"_Yeah," Felicity looked at her hands thinking about that horrible night. "I'm sorry about that by the way. It was my fault, Oliver was busy and Digg was infected. I thought I could follow a lead by myself. When I got to the vaccination truck The Count was there and he took me. He used deductive reasoning to find out that Oliver was the Arrow and threatened him. I'm so sorry." _

_Thea looked softly at Felicity. "I don't think that was a choice," She smiled at Felicity's confused face "He didn't even hesitate when your number came up on caller ID. He just answered. And when he was talking, I don't think I've seen Oliver look more upset and angry as when he got that phone call. And when he hung up, he didn't even debate whether or not to leave, he just said 'Something came up at the office, I have to go!'" She said in a deep, gruff voice pretending to be Oliver. "I don't think there was a choice to make." She finishes her explanation for Felicity._

"_He said the same thing." Felicity smiled watching a couple giggle as they walk by the water, fingers entwined. _

"_Are you and Ollie? You know, a thing? Not that I'm judging, because I would totally be all for that. You make him relax around you. Even when it's just me, he always seems on edge. But if you're there he seems, more comfortable and happy. I think you make him happy." Thea had finished her coffee now and was watching the children across the water swing and climb around on playground equipment. _

"_No, we are just friends." She stood up to let Thea absorb all the information "Oliver is a good man. I have never, and think I will never meet someone who is as good and as kind as Oliver. He loves you Thea. He loves you more than words can describe, numbers can count and the forever growing universe can discover. Keep that in mind." She turns to leave before adding one more comment. "If you chose to come back to him, to Starling, to everything, you should know: 141. That's the passcode. There will always be room in the team for you." She puts her hands in her pockets and begins he travel back to her car. _

"_The passcode for what?!" Thea shouts after her. _

"_You'll know it when you see it." Felicity flashes her smile but doesn't stop moving. She knew when Thea agreed to meet with her; she didn't have to worry about her ratting out Oliver. He is her brother after all. _

"Fey!" Thea shouts as she sees Felicity and Oliver walk in. Thea and Felicity had become quick friends; Fey was the nickname she had given Felicity after their first lunch and shopping outing. "Roy told me what happened are you okay?" The younger Queen quickly ran up to her close friend and wrapped her arms around Felicity in a crushing embrace. Felicity bit her lip but didn't make a sound. She had kept herself dosed with Tylenol to keep the edge off the pain, but her back still hurt, and her arms were still a little sore.

"Easy there Speedy you're hurting her." Oliver pried his sister off of the grimacing blonde.

"Sorry!" Thea apologized before taking a close look at her friend making sure she wasn't going to crumble to the floor.

"No, Thea I'm fine. Oliver is over-reacting." Felicity glances at Oliver while Thea turns to him and punches his arm. Giving him a death glare.

"Way to scare me Ollie! I thought she was going to blow away in the breeze!" Thea marches back to her seat and Felicity gives Oliver an 'I'm sorry!' face, in turn she got a chuckle from Oliver.

"Well," Felicity says walking over to her computers pulling up some tabs and programs. "Let's get to work!"

**A/N: AAAANNNND voalá! I hope you don't mind the lack of Oliver/Felicity. After all it wouldn't be a slow burn if you weren't all miserable! I know It's a shorter chapter, but I wanted to update soon. So I have written this. I would also like to take this time to say I read my first AU called Technical Assistance. It is perfectly perfect in every way. READ IT! ITZ GOOOooooD! **


	10. Almost, So Close, Not Quite

**A/N: No, I am not making this stuff up. I did research! According to my sources Starling City is in California and Central City is In Ohio, Crazy right?! Well those are the facts. And I stand by that. I stand by that and the chocolate fountain. Because um, duh, chocolate!**

Chapter 10: Almost, So Close, Not Quite

Thea quickly motions to Felicity telling her to 'come hither' from her chair next to Felicity's conventional one, "Well Fey, I did what you told me to and pulled up the facial recognition programs and typed the commands! We are officially scanning for your father's face in Utah!" Thea vociferated; obviously proud of how fast she was leaning despite being a catechumen.

"Thea, that's wonderful, but Central City isn't in Utah." Felicity giggles despite herself. Thea was a congenial pupil and deserved to be contented with her work.

"Yeah well Ohio has the security system like Fort Knox and no matter how many of those tricks you showed me I couldn't hack all the cameras. I barely even managed to hack a gas station there!" Clearly exasperated Thea marched upstairs, "I'm going to go work at my job. Something I'm actually good at." Felicity sighs dramatically and plops back into her cathedra in the foundry.

"Can you hack it?" Digg catechized.

Felicity places her hand over her heart and feigns chest pain by doubling over. "You hear that noise Dig?" She says sounding hurt "That's the sound of my heart shattering!" Her fingers waltz over the keys and in only a few strokes, she turns the computer around so they can see the monitor; on the screen is everyone with a criminal record being compared to a picture of that of her father. Some pictures just flash by, others have sections of their faces highlighted and comparison scans off to the side. "Ta-da!" She stands up and takes a bow. "But that's not the hard part. The hard part is how I'm going to get to-"

"We're" Oliver interrupts to correct her like she always does to them. "How we're going to," he says in a Don't-even-try-to-fight-me-on-this voice. Felicity sighs but doesn't argue. Just shoots him a let-me-finish look.

"Fine, the hard part is how _we're_ going to get to Ohio unnoticed. I can't exactly bring Oliver Jonas Queen into a criminal's lair." The way she says his name without breaking eye contact makes his heart clench. Somehow when she says his whole name like that, it feels so personal. She doesn't even know the effect she has on him.

"Seriously, this is Ohio; barely anyone will know who I am! Everything will be fine." He tries to soothe her worries. Oliver and Digg are both standing on the sparing mats, shirtless looking down at her. Felicity stands up in attempt to even the playing field; unfortunately she had removed her heels so she is no longer anywhere near his height. Eight inches shy of looking straight into his eyes.

"You said 'fine'." She noted.

"Yes, I did." Oliver said equally as firm. He knew what she was getting at. And she was right.

"You say 'Fine' when you get shot and you're bleeding out. You say 'fine' when the city is in flames. You are saying 'fine' now because this is Central City and you have subsidiaries there. This isn't Russia. You can't just wear a balaclava and romp around in the streets!" She is getting closer to them now. She has made her way around her desk and is slowing approaching them, punctuating each word with a step forward. "Unless you want to wear a burqa, which trust me, you don't! Those things are hot! There is no air conditioning and they weigh more than I can lift. Okay not actually more, they are just hot and weighted…" Felicity's formally well said speech turned slowly into one of her famous babbles.

"No, but the Arrow can." Oliver takes a pointed step forward. _One day_, he says to himself. _One day my size will intimidate her_. And like always, today is not today.

"Oh, no you don't mister!" She pokes him with her index finger, jamming it into his chest. "You can't intimidate me! Your growly voice and eyebrow-stares may scare the thugs in this city, but I laugh at them. I eat them for dinner with a side of mashed potatoes!" She blushes but doesn't take anything back, she simply plows forward with her tirade, "And the Arrow cannot accompany me because then I would be a known associate Mr. If-Anyone-Knew-Who-I-Was-You-Would-Become-a-Target-and-I-Will-Never-Let-That-Happen!" She snaps at him, using the same words he had used after the Slade debacle "On top of that," her fingers still poking his chest with the force of a typhoon. He was worried she was going to break a finger, and considering her whole job revolves around those hands, he couldn't let her injure one. "If someone caught you," He grabbed her hands with his and held them to his chest to calm her down. He could feel the fight leaving her, and her hopelessness returning. The same way it had in the foundry a few days ago when it all first started. "Then it would be my fault they figured out who you were, and it would be my fault you would get arrested!" He hands where splayed across his chest feeling his heartbeat. However he prayed to god that she thought his heart was beating out a samba from exercise, not for the fact that being near Felicity turned him into a processing machine. He didn't want to tell her yet that when she said his name, or touched his skin, or vice versa, it made his stomach lurch. "It would be my fault we were all arrested." She looked sadly at the ground, her eyes finally leaving his. Diggle had been slowly backing out of the room hoping that Oliver would talk.

"Hey," Oliver lets go of her right hand to cup her cheek. "I can go as Oliver Queen. I regret to say that the Queens don't have the cleanest track record with staying out of illegal businesses. Everything really will be okay." Felicity's right hand still rests on his pectoral muscle, and her fingers are absentmindedly drawing patterns on his bare chest. She seems to notice and a pink blush spreads covering her cheeks and her chest. Felicity bites her lip and Oliver's eyes move down to observe her bright, red labrums that are inviting him to kiss them. "Felicity," he breathes her name across her face. Their faces dangerously close, with Oliver's mouth inches away from hers. He leans forward ready to close the space between them, to finally take a leap of faith. To kiss the mouth he has been having dreams about for years now. To taste what he has only ever dreamed.

**BEEEEEEEP, BEEEEEEEP, BEEEEEEEEEP!**

Felicity's computers scream out to them making Felicity jump back surprised. Up until this very second she had been frozen, waiting in anticipation as to what Oliver was going to do. She hears Oliver growl in frustration but Felicity uses this as an opportunity to run back to her computer and collect her thoughts. She shouldn't be so scared; she had been waiting for that since he had told her he loved her back in the mansion. "Umm my computers have a hit…. They um," She licks her lips nervously "They found him." Her cheeks were as red as a cherry tomato.

Oliver was livid at being interrupted and was getting ready to just wrap is arm around Felicity's small frame, pull her flush against him, and kiss her when they hear the not unfamiliar sound of a pair of heals clacking in the back of the foundry getting closer. "Well, I cleared my schedule tonight, delegated all my duties and I am-" Thea stopped once Felicity and Oliver were in her line of vision. "Did I? Were you?" She begins her questioning. And similar to fan girls and all prime numbers other than two: she couldn't even. "OH MY GOSH WHERE TWO KIS-"

"NO!" Felicity interrupts too quickly "I just found a lead. I was about to call Digg…" She quickly turned away from Thea hoping to leave some of her dignity intact.

"Uh, Hu, Suuuuure you were!" She flashed her famous meddling smile "I'll go get Diggle." She walked away quicker now with a little extra pep in her step. The second Oliver hears the door close her rushes over to Felicity who immediately stands up to face him.

"Felicity," He says approaching her trying to reclose the distance that had been created.

"Oliver," She responded, He stopped right in front of her ready to claim her mouth when the foundry door is re-opened. Felicity stands a little straighter and backs up to sit down. While Oliver just growls again in painful frustration. He knew this was a bad time. Maybe to world really did want him to be miserable for all of eternity.

* * *

"Right, even now that you know where his offices are probably located, you don't know how to get a face to face with him. Not unless you say, 'Hey I'm Felicity Smoak! Mark Hudson's daughter! There are assassins after me because of something my daddy did and I need to ring his neck!" Thea says in her best Felicity voice.

"He is not my dad." Felicity mumbles but Thea ignores her.

"Fine, Schedule a meeting with her mob boss not-father, by saying you currently have in you possession something to trade for face time. Maybe take something from applied sciences, and I'll cover for Oliver here at home, we can say he is in Europe with Diggle. You guys just keep your faces hidden. If no one is looking for you, you probably won't be seen." Thea sounded so sure it was hard to not be swayed. It was an almost perfect plan. She sure is good with a cover story, that's for sure.

"Where were you three years ago when Oliver needed a cover story?" Digg chuckles remembering the sad excuses Oliver had composed on his own.

"Sitting in my room, waiting for him to come back to me." Thea remembers sadly. Oliver senses her down-trodden spirit gives her, what she calls, an Ollie wrap. Several times he had hugged her and she had joked about being suffocated under all his muscle.

"I'm sorry it took me so long." He says quietly and gives a loving kiss to the top of her head.

"I'm not the one who needs that apology!" She mumbles

"What?"

"Nothing!" She recovers quickly and continues to blabber on about how sketch her family is, that it wouldn't be considered weird if Ollie gets caught.

The exchange happens so fast Oliver first thinks he imagined it but he knew it happened. He also knew whom Thea had been referring to. Ever since she first came down to the foundry she had been on his case about Felicity.

* * *

"_Come on Ollie, are you really going to deny you have a thing for her?" Thea quips._

"_Yes Thea, because I don't; and even if I did I can't. She deserves better than someone she doesn't know if he is going to come home alive or in a body bag every night." _

"_If you say so…" _

"_I do." _

"_Alright then,"_

"_Alright."_

"_Soooo"_

"_Damn it Thea get out of my head!"_

* * *

The conversations always felt more sinister at the time, using quick answers and passive comments to catch him off guard. It was easy banter between siblings but Thea always knew what buttons to press, much like Felicity.

"We don't have to steal anything; I just created a program that will edit a person out of video and picture frames. Essentially, you just carry it with you and it hacks into the cameras and video recorders around you and edits you out. There are still a few glitches but for an illegal business that would help them greatly. I can install a Trojan and once they download it to all their devices and servers I can use Tockman's program to fry everything."

"You always did have an inventive streak with a demented side fit for revenge." Thea marvels. "Remind me to stay on your good side." It was complement, Felicity knew it but she still felt slightly embarrassed. Her cheeks felt hot which usually meant she was blushing.

"Well," Felicity interjects hoping to detour the conversation back to its origin. "I should probably call the airport, Thea would you stop by my house and pick up some clothes? I would send Digg but something tells me he doesn't know the difference between coral and salmon. Anyone who doesn't know that shouldn't be in my closet." She gave Thea a week smile.

"Sure, Fey." Thea practically jumped out of her chair "Come on Roy, You can be my muscle." Thea and Roy walk out hand in hand. Causing Oliver to death stare after Roy.

"You know, no matter how long you look at the back of Roy's head, it's not going to explode." Digg advises.

"Not without some really advanced technology." Felicity corrects him. "I might be able to scratch something up," As soon as she starts her little sass interjection reality settles back in acting as an instant soberer. "Later, of course… I have to… plane tickets…." She quickly spins in her chair to hide behind her monitors.

* * *

After Thea arrives again with some clothes and shoes and jewelry for Felicity, because she will need something nice to wear to a mob bosses place and cover club, they repack all their items and head for the airport.

It wasn't the Oliver's privet jet that looked like a hotel room that was making Felicity nervous, It was Oliver. They had almost kissed, right? She should be nervous because she distinctly remembers a very hurtful "Because Of the Life I Lead, I Just Think It's Better Not to Be with Someone I Could Really Care About" speech. Even if that was the whole speech, it was hurtful, and she never wanted to go through that again. So avoiding him was the easiest thing to do. The second she sat down she pretended to fall asleep. For eleven hours. At some point her leg fell asleep and she was miserable. About near the end of the flight Oliver diapered into the back of the plane to go do, she didn't know Oliver stuff. Like have a brooding competition with himself.

"He's gone." Digg whispers in her ear. "So you can stop pretending to be asleep."

"Oh thank god my legs!" Felicity stretches her legs out in front of her "Golly, I am never flying on a plane again. I hate planes. Ever since I watched Ethan Hawke, Vincent Spano, and Josh Hamilton eat their friends, I just, I can't…."

Digg laughs, "Finally a reference I understand. Maybe you shouldn't be watching movies that will scare you out of mundane everyday life experiences."

"Joining a South American soccer team and loading said team into a plane, just to fling them across the Andes and have their plane crash, is hardly a 'mundane everyday life experience'." She is sitting up next to Diggle now her eyes looking outside, watching as they fly over a lot of green, green trees, green fields, green gables, just so much green. "I think the Vigilante would like it here." She says pointing at what looks like a green lake.

"What did he do?" Digg queries, he is keeping his voice low and looking directly at her.

"It's nothing," She looks bashful and his countenance is unconvinced. "Like really nothing. Nothing happened because, well I don't know. Maybe nothing was ever going to happen and I'm all worked up for no reason." She nervously pulled and twisted her ring finger trying to calm herself down.

"Felicity, Oliver isn't good at being articulate with his feelings. He isn't the type of person that's going to make a gargantuan declaration with a speech and whatnot. He needs to show you how he feels. Running ten miles without stretching is easy; telling someone how he feels is the same as Iranian torcher." Oliver returns from his trip to the cockpit just as Diggle finishes "Speak of the devil." He mumbles to Felicity as Oliver takes a seat across from them.

"I talked to the pilot; we should be landing in thirty minutes." Oliver examines Felicity's nervous posture. "Are you ready?" He asks. He doesn't ask if she's okay, because she is about to come face to face with one of her most painful memories. Of course she's not okay. Felicity doesn't answer; instead she directs her attention back to the window.

Felicity watches as the ground rapidly becomes more detailed, the grass clearer, the cracks in the pavement more prominent, and the cars driving to and from work more meticulous. It was roughly five in the morning. She knew Oliver and Digg might have slept but she hadn't caught a wink since the first night in the foundry. Felicity shivers', she was still scared if she let herself relax and cop some Z's she might have another nightmare. It had been bad enough having all those nightmares when Slade was in town, but it was worse now. If they die, it will be her fault and she can't live with that guilt on her shoulders.

They feel the plane shudder and the wheels extend and touch down on the run way. Felicity finally mumbles a response as they unload and head for the black Bentley she had ordered to be waiting for them. "As ready as I'll ever be."

**A/N: Next up, is yes. The chapter you've all been waiting for. DA KISS! Probably, most likely, I want to fit it into the next chapter but you never know with my crazy brain. I wanted them to kiss in this chapter but I wanted to give Digg a chance to pepper Felicity with Oliver advice. I just love meddling Diggle. Diggle and Thea are my favorite Olicity shippers. **** See ya' soon.F**


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